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roanoke,va - NORTH WILKESBORO N.C.—Dean Combs—who drove NASCAR races for a Richmond-based owner and with a Richmond-based sponsor—has been charged in a North Carolina moonshine bust. On Friday, Combs, 57, was charged with operating a still that authorities had blown up the night before. Combs was a five-time champion of NASCAR’s compact-car touring series in the 1970s and ‘80s and his 60 wins remain the series’ all-time high. He won the 1980 and ‘81 titles driving a Datsun owned by Irv Sanderson, then a Richmond car dealer—making Combs the first driver to win a NASCAR series championship in a foreign make. Sanderson also owned cars that Combs drove in two dozen races in what is now the Sprint Cup Series. Best Products, a now-defunct Richmond-based retailer, was Combs’ sponsor at times. Combs and the authorities who blew up the still seemed entirely cordial with each other on Friday. As rain fell that morning, Combs used his cell-phone camera to snap photos of the remains of a moonshine still that lay broken and blown apart on a hill behind his home and just a couple of hundred yards from the North Wilkesboro Speedway—one of NASCAR’s first tracks and one that Combs’ father had once co-owned.

In addition to his driving, Combs had been a crew chief for a NASCAR team once owned by (Junior) Johnson.