The Greatest Cheats in NASCAR History

No, that's "getting competitive" unless it was expressly prohibited.

Some drag racers reportedly had water filled slicks used for weigh ins, with the engine running so the sloshing couldn't be heard. THAT'S cheating

 

Thank you! I couldn't agree more, and the pop off valve is a great example. CART chose to certify parts one at a time (manifolds for example) and the ones in question that had the pop off valves in the high pressure spot passed inspection.

 

Were in his Hudson days:

1. Lots of people drilled the Hudson flywheel to lighten it, but by drilling straight through it, which was easily caught in a tear-down. Smokey heated the gear ring, popped it off, and drilled the flywheel radially. Re-heat and re-shrink the gear ring back on, and it could not get caught in tech.

2. The rules barred porting and polishing. Smokey, as noted, took that sort of rule literally and used oil well drilling mud to accomplish the same thing, but without porting and polishing and in a way that left the head casting fininsh look untouched. When he got caught, he started enameling the ports on the theory that the rule barred removing material to polish the ports, but were silent on adding material.

 

I think not, since the rules specified a minimum diameter of the plumbing from the exit of the valve to the back of the car, it was cheating. The washer was brazed inside the tube where it couldn't be seen for obvious reasons. The diameter of the washer was about half that of the tube in which it was inserted, which was the minimum diameter specified for the plumbing... That's also the way the tech folks saw it too, the team was penalized and the qualifying run was kicked out...

 

That's probably true, in one book Smokey admitted that they realized that if the engine turned in the other direction when the car came off of the corners the rear axle torque would help plant the inside rear tire (and take load off the outside rear tire) and that would keep the inside tire from spinning since they couldn't lock the rear axle. Smokey rerigged the engine to turn in the opposite direction with a different cam, swapped the starter to spin in the other direction, and then flipped the rear axle inside the casing so that the axle would work right...

Probably cheating, but really smart. As someone said above, the greatest cheaters never got caught...

 

well... recentley I would say the advent of the double decker diffusor... the "f-duct"... the redbull... LOL... kidding...

Um... steering dampner in the renaults when alonso was driving...

Any of the cars with a fan sucking the cars to the ground back in the day...

 

...Lotus fame was married to the idea that power to weight ratio was paramount.

In one of his early F1 cars the fuel tank was a fibre glass arrangement that the scrutinizers could see through the tank and see the level.

Much nashing of teeth as to the safety of the tank, and wall thickness.

Permitted this race but, next time...

...so he kept the same tank and painted it black.

at the hands of a Lotus...R.I.P. Jochen Rindt

 

Cartman of "Southpark"

 

Nitrous oxide in the tube frame. Cant remember the team. Found when the "off" knob was left on during inspection and a hissing noise was coming from the car.

Charcoal briquettes to hold up the ride height which crush at the first corner.

Personally I dont like cheating but creative engineering within the rules is what it is all about.

 

I abhore cheating, BUT I do always seek to take advantage of the rules.



BUT, isn't "cheating" WITHIN THE SPIRIT of NASCAR?


I mean, the 'Shine runners from which the sport sprung, sure didn't give the Revenuers ANY kind of a fair chance at catching them. NOPE. NONE. NEVER.

Souped-up "sleeper" cars were the order of the day. On both sides.

So .........



Just sayin.




Old Army Ranger's Saying:

"IF you ain't cheating, YOU ain't trying.

And if you get caught, YOU weren't trying hard enough."



Just another angle to think about.

 

Quote from article I found from the former owner of NOS Systems, but doesn't name the team--


“There was this one guy out here when they ran the track at Riverside and he was well behind everyone in practice,” recalled Thermos. “Well, the guy ended up hitting a hay bale in practice. After practice, he hooked up his nitrous and there was some hay that had gotten into the line and become lodged. This guy didn’t know it. He went out there and out-qualified Richard Petty and when he came in his car was hissing. As tech officials walked up, the realized the car was leaking nitrous. It wasn’t like he could hide it, because everything was frozen on the upper side of the motor.”



Nitrous has been used by nearly every form of racing over the years to get an edge..

 

This is type of thing that lead to the post race inspections.

Creative interpretation of the rules is how race car technology evolves. and often it is these quickly banned "cheats" that find their way from the track to the factory.

 

Smokey writes as well?!

 

Bob Glidden, held the NHRA lifetime wins record until Force broke it a couple years ago.

Raced with his son who was a cheating bastard as well. He raced Outlaw 10.5 drag cars in a fox body Mustang with a small block nitrous motor. He was out running big block blower/turbo cars a few years back. The engine compartment of his car looked like a gobbled up box of crap with lines and hoses everywhere, just junk. I sat there one day following the nitrous lines and they lead to know where, they were just going back into each other and such. Now remember these cars minimum weight is 3000lbs so pretty much everything off a stock vehicle has to be stripped to accommodated the chassis/cage, rear suspension ect... but he still had the heater core stuck in the firewall and the tubes were bent and they pointed toward the carb and were very clean for some reason. I always suspected him of some how pumping nitro methane out of those tubes and into the carbs.... only way I could explain how that car could be faster than the others with way more power.

Also heard a pretty good story about Bill Elliots brother who was also his engine builder. The year after Bill broke the NASCAR speed record at Talledega they implemented restricter plates. The rules said "all the air and fuel had to pass through the holes in the plates". Bills brother hollowed out the 4 studs that held the carb on and into the intake to allow more air in and jetted the carb for the added air pretty much negating the plates air restriction.