NASCAR racing reigns as America’s most popular sport not only because of its high-speed thrills and chills but also for the colorful characters and memorable moments this unique fraternity has produced over the past half century. Below are just a handful of excerpts from the sport’s greatest behind-the-scenes stories ever told, as compiled in the first-of-its-kind collection, "Then Junior Said to Jeff…": "I’d rather not elaborate on that," [Dale Earnhardt Sr.] said [when addressing the media after his seventh Winston Cup championship and being asked about the earlier death of driver Neil Bonnett], then paused again. When he looked up, there was genuine pain in his face. His voice was halting when he spoke: "I can’t go fishing in my own lake because of Neil," he said. "Because we fished in it all the time. I can’t. . . . I’ve tried. . . . It’s Neil’s pond." Track promoter Enoch Staley recalls a race on Junior Johnson’s home track of North Wilkesboro Speedway: "I saw something sail out of the stands and over the fence, right in front of [Johnson’s opponent’s] car. It hit the track and broke into a thousand pieces. It was a quart-sized fruit jar filled with white liquor.

Once he’d avoided the shattered glass, Johnson watched what came next with amusement.

"I saw that the law had come to the scene and was trying to arrest the guy," he said. "There was a pretty lively scuffle going on ’til the deputies got him handcuffed and took him off."

But that, according to Staley, wasn’t the funny part.

"Junior didn’t tell the rest of the story," he said. "The fan that got taken to jail was a feller named Ernest Money. He was Junior’s uncle."