Shepherd says he got into the moonshine business himself briefly when he was in his late teens. He and a friend built a still.
"One evening, when we got off work, we were headed over to the still and heard this awful explosion just right before we got to it, like a quarter-mile away," Shepherd says. "The revenuers down there blew our still up, so we took off running. They never caught us and never connected us to it."
Shepherd knew that if he was ever going to get away from the farm or selling moonshine, he had to work hard and find a skill. When he was 10, he bought a '49 Wizard bike and learned how to take it apart and put it back together.
At age 11 he could take an engine apart and reassemble it. By age 12 he bought his first car, a 1937 Chevrolet coach. "I gave $12.50, two flying squirrels, a gray squirrel and a 20-gauge shotgun for it," Shepherd says.
The shotgun belonged to his father. That was the toughest thing he had to part with in the deal.
Time To RaceBy age 16, Shepherd went to nearby racetracks. He didn't race because he didn't have a license. And he didn't have a license because he kept losing his privileges when police officers caught him racing on backroads, or getting into other mischief. In fact, he didn't have a driver's license until he was 26, the age he also was before he actually got into a race car for competition.
Shepherd began his career in 1967 driving Late Models at Hickory Motor Speedway near his home. Hickory has produced some of the sport's greatest drivers and mechanics, including Harry Gant, Tommy Houston, the late Bobby Isaac, Dale Jarrett, and Andy Petree.
Shepherd was a diamond in the rough. Some of his first races were relatively short due to crashes. He would come from the back to the front, and sometimes went back to the rear again. But he kept digging. He survived those early days because of help from friends, some of whom would pitch in just $5 at a time.
"I've always had dear friends who cared about me and helped out," says Shepherd. "Glen Canipe bought parts for my race car many times. Glen had a wife and nine kids. He was just a worker like me. I can remember to this day hearing Glen tell his wife, 'Honey we have to cut down on groceries this week because we've got to buy Morgan some parts.' I will never forget that."
Shepherd exploded on the scene full time in 1969, running in the Hobby division at Hickory in a 1955 Chevy, winning 21 of 29 races. "I ran all but eight of those races on the same left-front tire," he recalls.
He ran the same car in 1970, but put a 1957 Chevy body on it. He won seven races early that year before he wrecked and nearly destroyed the car. He put a 1966 Chevelle body on, but the car didn't win another race. He sold the car to another up-and-coming Saturday-night racer, Harry Gant, for $175-about half the cost of one Goodyear Eagle racing tire today.
Shepherd was on his way in 1970, finally making it in racing. He built his own cars and engines, competing at scores of tracks in the Southeast. He ran in his first Winston Cup race in 1970, but his official rookie season wouldn't come until much later.
Living FastMorgan's life was looking up. He was winning races, fulfilling a childhood dream. He was 29 years old and on a rocket. But he was getting into mischief-drinking and living fast again.
Shepherd had a drinking problem that didn't show up every day or even every week. But when he drank, he says, he drank heavily. He would disappear for days at a time, spending the night with different women and waking up with no money in his pocket.
Shepherd's career suffered the next few years. His habits cost him victories, and they also cost him his marriage. Losing his wife smacked Shepherd in the face. He knew he needed to change.
On February 23, 1975, Morgan accepted Christ as his personal savior, looking to get control of his life.