Unsanctioned innovations

[Ghoste]

Although Smokey Yunick almost certainly gets the award for most creative rules interpretation in a single vehicle, do you think any one year saw more rule bending than others?

[Mike DC]

  
People seem to remember the 1970s as the point when NASCAR was farthest out of control in general.  The richest sponsored teams had too much advantage, legal and otherwise, over the bucks-down teams.  


It's hard to know where to draw the line between cheating and just being ahead in the developmental sense.  

Is it an unfair advantage to have enough money to buy 20 copies of a part and run the fastest one?  Or to modify something within the letter of the rules, but way out of line with the spirit of it?

Rumor has it that Richard Petty's infamous winning streak in 1967 happened partially because his team was putting more weight on the left side of the chassis and the rules hadn't caught that idea yet.  It wasn't illegal but it was certainly out of the spirit of the rules.  

Petty also had enough money to run every race he possibly could, and a lot of them were smaller sprints competing against lesser fields.  Whereas David Pearson was a lot choosier about picking races to run.  

 

[Ghoste]

Hard to draw the line but I would say adding weight to one side might be a sort of unknown advantage whereas Yunicks 100 foot fuel lines go too far. 

[HPP]

Would an overflow line that exited at your rear bumper be one of those?

[maxwellwedge]

Smokey is one of my heroes....smart man, deep thinker and an absolute character. 

[wingcar]

1966 seemed to be a banner year for "creative interruption" of the rule book.  That was year Junior Johnson showed up with his famous "Yellow Banana" Ford.   Both ends of the car appeared to be curved upwards, and the top was chopped.  Just to name a few of the deviations' from "stock".  Then Smokey entered his Chevy, which was a scaled down version of the street car.  The number 6 Charger had a set-up that allowed David Pearson to lower the front once the race had started.   And, these are just a few of the bigger "interruptions", there were many more that teams tried to get pass the inspectors.  I believe it was due to the efforts/interruptions of Junior Johnson and Smokey, that NASCAR started using templates.

[HPP]

Mopar factory drivers used a plastic spacer under the t-bar adjusting bolt that allowed them to meet height requirements before the race. The plastic disintegrated as it was pounded during the race eventually allowing the cars to achieve a lower than allowed race height. Since height wasn't checked post race, they got away with this for several years.

Once templates were introduced, they only follow fore to aft contours. The Bill Elliot Coors Thunderbird in the '80s was built slightly narrower than stock which is how it managed to dominate a season before being discovered and resulted in width template checking.

[Ghoste]

Don't forget the frozen shocks too.

[maxwellwedge]

Didn't Petty use loose intake bolts (massive vacuum leaks) and super rich carb jetting to effectively increase the cfm? Wouldn't idle - but ran like a raped ape in the top end.

[wingcar]

He also got caught with a bigger engine than was legal one year.....he didn't know about it until after the race.  He asked for more power from his engine builder....be careful what you ask for.
He kept the win, but NASCAR emptied his wallet a bit on that one.

[Aero426]

He also got caught with a bigger engine than was legal one year.....he didn't know about it until after the race.  He asked for more power from his engine builder....be careful what you ask for.
He kept the win, but NASCAR emptied his wallet a bit on that one.

Richard did not know about the engine.   It was a whopper - 381 CI.   The crew also put left side tires on the right during his final stop, which was illegal.  

The second place car (Waltrip) had been quickly removed from the track and was not able to be inspected.  

[Mike DC]

  
I've never understood how they fooled the inspectors with C.I. cheats like increased vacuum.  If the legal rule was XXX inches, then wouldn't NASCAR smell a rat if the displacement wasn't within a few inches of that figure?  I can't imagine the cheating methods produced false figures that the teams could control very well.  Swaying the figure by only 10% is still over 40 inches. 

I know they commonly just tested a single cylinder to get the figure.  But that's liable to make the false number even harder for the teams to control.  

 

[Johnny Daytona]

 
I've never understood how they fooled the inspectors with C.I. cheats like increased vacuum.  If the legal rule was XXX inches, then wouldn't NASCAR smell a rat if the displacement wasn't within a few inches of that figure?  I can't imagine the cheating methods produced false figures that the teams could control very well.  Swaying the figure by only 10% is still over 40 inches.  

I know they commonly just tested a single cylinder to get the figure.  But that's liable to make the false number even harder for the teams to control.  

 

Before I went to track. I would drill a pin hole into the header at the flange. During inspection, while I was removing the valve train I would get the exhaust valve open and slide a piece of safety wire through the hole and by the exhaust valve, then remove the rocker arm, holding the exhaust valve open just a little bit.  Having the exhaust leak was good for 30 inches overall smaller reading.  I never put a big engine in a car. I never wanted the hassle of getting it through tech. I would do this only when I went with some one that had it in their car. Most or the time I never worried about being low on power. Or needing the edge that a big engine might give. Often it hurt. and I would have to detune it. If I had within 50 hp. of the best engine and it ran the same when I loaded it on the trailer as it did when I got there. And I did not have to work on it. I was happy. Time working and tuning the chassis to go faster through the corner was more speed . If the car doesn't slow down,  the engine doesn't have to work hard to get the car back up to speed.  But I will say that I have carried a lot of ballast to Victory Lane. 50 pounds was worth more than 50 hp., in 500 miles.