In a rare and priceless moment during the Pepsi 400 weekend at Daytona, reporters were turned loose in a room filled with greatness; several past champions from the Daytona 500 recapping decades of famous finishes and memorable moments.

Like a kid in a candy store, I didn't know where to turn first. All individually seated at their respective tables, I felt like I was shopping at Tiffany; a nervous excitement bubbled up inside as I tried to think about who my readers would want to hear from first or what they would ask if given the opportunity.

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As I stood in the middle of the room, somewhat looking in circles, Mario Andretti sat down at the table to my right, caught my eye and flashed a smile.

From there, my morning with greatness -- and journey to learn first-hand where NASCAR began, how it has evolved and the colorful personalities within -- commenced.

However starting the story with a legendary open-wheeler from Italy is likely bad form if you're going to talk about the history and heritage so deeply rooted in American stock-car racing and NASCAR.

You need to appreciate the origin of stock-car racing, and that is bootlegging during Prohibition. Bootleggers ran illegal moonshine all over the South in their modified cars down twisted mountain roads all while evading the fuzz hot on their tails.

So who better to begin the story with than Junior Johnson, a moon shiner turned racer and successful team owner:

Winner of the 1960 Daytona 500, Johnson went on later to own a team that produced championship winning drivers such as Cale Yarborough and Darrell Waltrip. Today, the rough and tumble racecar legend is somewhat of an epicurean. A moonshine virgin myself who grew up in the Midwest, I asked Johnson how a city gal like myself could get some of that famed hooch:

"I tell you what, go to the ABC (liquor) store and ask for a bottle of Midnight Moon; that's my product. I got a company that makes it and it's out in the market. You'll love it. It's been, you know, toned down from what moonshine used to be. It's in the vodka section. Get you some and make it like you was going to make a vodka drink. You like vodka, right?"

On how it all started:

"I was hulling moonshine, you know, whiskey to little towns around North Wilkesboro, Charlotte, Greensboro -- all around North Carolina, it was a night time job and I'd run into police and you'd out run them. That's how it all got started.

"We fixed our cars to make bigger horse power motors, to make sure and outrun the revenuers. They had regular cars and that's how we learned to beat other drivers on the race track. I think when more of the moon shiners got into racing, it made better and better.

"Some of the moonshine races were some of the best races I ever had.

The sport of NASCAR has changed tremendously since then. It's the most popular sport in the world and they've been so many changes. The rules have changed so much and some of them I don't agree with and others I do.

"When I was coming up it was a rough neck type of sport, we grew up fighting and carrying on.

"In my day if their was a dispute, we handled it like men, our disputes weren't settled in the newspaper or through the media. All these rules are beating the guys down to where they're not able to be the manly types we used to be."

On drivers today who lack the rough and rugged look and are much more manicured with waxed eyebrows and designer sunglasses:

"Well if they came along in my day their ass would've been mud because we'd stomp 'em flat in the ground. We were bad!

"If someone tried wax my eyebrows I'd cut his throat. I do think they are too prissy today. I want a see a man race not a damn sissy.

Marvin Panch won the 1961 Daytona 500 and bought a house in Daytona Beach with his winnings:

"I bought a farm. We still have it. My daughter lives on it now and if I'm nice to her she'll let me park my motorhome out there. It's good to see all the guys that I used to run with and the new drivers. I know who they are, but they don't know who I am."

Mario Andretti, who prefers open-wheel racing, won in 1967 dominating the field by leading 112 of the 200 laps. On the way to Daytona, the Italian picked up Southern boy and 1976 Daytona 500 champ David Pearson in Spartanburg, S.C, to get a head start down memory lane:

"I came over to NASCAR after looking at drivers like A.J. Foyt, Dan Gurney and Parnelli Jones. They were doing well and doing some winning of their own and I thought what a neat thing to do. I'll see what it's like on the other side; versatility is part of my career and what I enjoyed the most.

"I'm quite happy with my career and I'm basically open wheel racer, that was my cup of tea and I wouldn't have changed a thing but it's hard to say. When I was driving open wheel that side was still strong. With NASCAR growing into what it is today, if the situation were today, who knows.

"[Former open-wheel racer Juan Pablo] Montoya, I had no doubt he would put one together before this season was over, whether it was a road course or an oval, it doesn't matter. I'm not surprised."

On changes in NASCAR and women in the sport:

"Changes are inevitable, look at life. All pro sports have become more commercialized, the demands are different, but women for some reason really were not in the sport, they couldn't even get in the pits. I'm very proud to say I'm one of the pioneers to get women in pits. I accomplished that with USAC in 1968. I was going to withdraw - I owned a team - if my wife would not be able to come in pits. By the end of that year, we had women in the pits at Riverside.

"I thought that was archaic and short minded.

"Other changes are not to everyone's liking. As time goes on, everything has become more regulated. The only negative thing is NASCAR and its judgment calls regarding drivers behavior out there between one another. That is something that should be between the drivers, and the officials should keep their noses out of it to be honest with you; that's my take on it. As far as regulations and so forth, that's how it is. Obviously here and there NASCAR takes a misstep, but I give them an A-plus in general.

A.J. Foyt, another legendary open-wheeler, took his turn in 1972. The morning of the race a headline in the newspaper read: "AJ says he'll win Daytona 500." And he did. Foyt's sense of self and strong confidence will forever be remembered and recounted by NASCAR fans for years to come. Admittedly, he sees a lot of himself in the driver who some consider Foyt's protégé, Tony Stewart:

"It's always great to come to Daytona -- we [Indy Racing League] were here in February to test. I had a lot of fun through the years down here and spent a lot of time down here and raced a lot of races down here.

"The Wood Brothers were such great people to work with and they made sure everything was 100 percent, but you still have to have that little lady luck on your side. I've always felt like you make your own luck, but still it's got to fall your way.

"It's good to have your name amongst all the greats that have won the Daytona 500. Everybody in the world knows the Kentucky Derby and the Indy 500 and they know the Daytona 500, so it's very good."

On if Stewart will win the Daytona 500:

"If he uses his head he will. Tony and I are pretty good friends. He gets a little hot headed like I did; I've caused myself a couple of races, but no, he'll be here.

"I tease him and say when you've won enough races you can talk to me. We cut up with each other. I tease and say, 'You ain't won nothing big yet, win something big.' I say, 'You win Le Mans? No, then don't talk to me.' I'm always giving him a bad time, but he's a great driver if he never won another race. He don't have to take a back seat to nobody."

On driving for the Wood Brothers:

"I could only run just a few races, because of Indy cars but the funniest thing was in Ontario, Calif. It was one of the biggest races and paid $150 lap money. Cale [Yarborough] got hurt and I was just healing up and couldn't go to Japan and race so I said yeah I'm well enough.

"We sit on the pole with the Wood Brothers and set the track record. It must have been halfway and I said man I think I've got a bad vibration. I told Glenn or Leonard [Wood], one of them. They said you know this pays $150 lap money and you're leading. I said: The vibration just left! I never came in, I said hell no ... with that kind of money I ain't feeling nothing.

"My life has gone by so fast and I've gotten so old. Anytime you're having fun, time flies by. Back in my years, we had so much more fun than the boys do today, because you made good money if you won, but more than that, you always tried to help each other. It ain't like it used to be."

Buddy Baker opened the decadent decade of the 1980s with his Daytona 500 win after 18 frustrating tries and still today struggles to find the words to describe the experience. (Oh, and did he mention the speeding ticket on the way home? Make sense, his No. 28 Grey Ghost holds the record for the fastest Daytona 500):

"I have tried every way in the world. That question is impossible for a racecar driver to answer. It is exhilaration, it's 'OK, you've won the biggest race that we have in NASCAR.' The emotion was to a point where you almost felt nauseous.

"The night of the race I went to bed, I had to drive home because I had to be in Richmond in a couple of days. I packed up everything and took off and just as I entered the wonderful state of Georgia, I topped a hill nobody on the road, 2:30 a.m., and the fuzz-buster looked like it was dancing on the dash. Then I said 'oh no' and looked at the speedometer and I went 'Holy jeez.' I pulled over and the [officer said] 'Buddy Baker! I can't believe it. I am such a fan of yours, but you have the worst luck, and this is one of those times.'

"I just spent the whole day running 200 miles per hour. We talked for 15 to 20 minutes afterward. I was so excited and happy that [the ticket] didn't even bother me. So that was a cap for a wonderful day -- you won the Daytona 500 and a speeding ticket in the middle of the night.

"It took me 18 years to win and Dale [Earnhardt] 19. It gets to the point where you doubt yourself. In my case, it was 18 years of frustration having the race won so many times, but then again, a whole lot of people have never won here and you have to take that into consideration too.

Bill Elliott, a two-time winner -- in 1985 and '87 -- holds the qualifying record with a speed of 210.364 mph and is still at it after all these years proving age is just a number when it comes to NASCAR drivers.

"Back in that era, Ford came out with a T-bird in that particular shape, in the early 1980s. It was a car that we refined. To come here and win in '85, we kept refining the car and getting better. My brother [Ernie] had really good power in the engine at that point. So, between all the stuff that came together, it's just like that old saying, all the stars kind of lined up and everything worked. We had a lot of good luck. We came here and won in '85 and then backed it up in '87, so in the unrestricted stuff, we had some really good speeds.

"I felt like when I left pit road that I wasn't going to come back. We had a heck of a racecar and everything back then was on the ragged edge -- we didn't have radial tires. The generation of cars at that time was so much different than what they have today. It's just a whole different evolution. As time goes on and things change -- we had good stuff for that evolution, and then somebody else came along and did something else and another and another and it always seems to change as time goes on.

"I will say I think the thing that I'm really most thankful for in this sport, over the years, is safety. I've always been an advocate of making things safer for the drivers."

Bobby Allison, who won in '78 and '82, also won the first Daytona 500 where restrictor plates where mandated in 1988 because NASCAR felt the speeds were getting too high at some of the superspeedways; evident by Allison's crash at Talladega in '87.

"The first time I saw (Daytona International Speedway) I was in Miami racing a modified car and dragging it around the country and I came here to look at this place under construction and I said, 'Wow. Wow. How are we going to get a race car all the way to that other corner down there?'

"Then in 1960 I came here with a modified and really struggled with that, but at least got out on the race track and ran some laps. Then I came back here in '61 with a 1960 Chevy from the year before -- it had been a Grand National the year before, the Cup cars from those days. A lot of cars started to race, more than the 43 that race today. I started 39th and finished 39th still running. Pretty impressive, but I did it.

"I thought [racing wide-open] was neat. In fact, I made it around here wide-open throttle during the tests, probably the first of anybody."

On whether or not the wins mean more today than they did decades ago:

"It keeps growing because the event keeps growing. There will be people that will stay up all night Saturday night to watch [the Daytona 500] on satellite TV around the world. [My wife] Judy and I went to Spain and Italy on a goodwill tour for the Navy and we were in a restaurant in a hotel in Madrid and a man asked for my autograph. What a complement for somebody to come up and be all enthused about NASCAR racing in Madrid, Spain."

Darrell Waltrip, known for his quick wit and outspokenness, won the Daytona the following year in 1989. He retired in 2000 and became a NASCAR television analyst with FOX and changed the broadcasting decade with his personality.

"Nothing has changed much at the track. You still got the car, still got the crew chief and you've got the people that work on the car at the track, but back at the shop you've got 400 employees now. The number of people involved and the number of people that follow the sport daily, newspapers, magazine, so many folks want a little piece of what we are doing.

"I like the simplicity of what we used to do. I liked it when it was simple, when we showed up and all we worried about was the green-white-checkered ... and now all these politics and inspections ... Daytona was really the only place where we came and worried about going through tech, the room of doom. We brought everything down here we knew to do a car hoping we could get half of it approved. We knew we were going to lose some things when we came here. The fun factor has been almost eliminated. I like the glamour though. When people say 'Are you here with the show,' I say, 'No, man, I am the show.' "

Dale Earnhardt Jr. was the 2004 Daytona 500 champ and he got the job done after his fifth try, while it took his late father 19 years. The race is easily one of the most memorable NASCAR victories in recent history:

"Really the only feeling I had emotionally, was relief.

"I'm pretty honored to be in that group and to have won this race and to be able to share the stage with some of the guys that were on it. I was glad that they all came and that they took the time out of their schedules to be here and to make this as big as they can make it. There's some big talent up there; it's pretty impressive.

"[In 1985] I was watching a race down in the old scoring stand -- it used to be where the kids and the moms use to go down toward Turn 1 ... daddy blew a right-front tire going into [Turn] 1 and he was sliding along the wall, the car was tore up in the front and I just remember seeing that. Greg Sacks won the race, it was the Firecracker 400."