NASCAR is one of the most professional and exciting motorsport disciplines in the world, but interesting stories when bending the rules are prevalent.
When a sport is derived from illegal moonshine runners, cheating is going to be just the norm as the famous saying states ‘if you ain’t cheating, you ain’t winning’.”
Let’s start with NASCAR’s most famous cheater Smokey Yunick.
Yunick once used a basketball to give himself extra fuel by inflating it in the tank when NASCAR inspected it, giving him a couple of gallons extra.
Another of Yunick’s tales include building a Chevelle to seven-eighths scale to slip through the air faster or filling his roll cage with extra fuel or not modifying the manifolds by hand, but by pumping an abrasive compound it circumnavigated the rules.
Another ingenious way Yunick got around the rules was when NASCAR regulated the size of the fuel tank instead installing. He made the fuel line 11-foot long and two inches wide ensuring another five gallons was held.
Junior Johnson is another to have bent the rules during his involvement with NASCAR.
His most known was coined the ‘Yellow Banana’ due to the 1966 Ford Galaxie being significantly different to its road-going counterpart. This included the nose being pointed down, the rear was pointed up and the body was curved in the middle featuring a longer door all to satisfy aerodynamics.
Another ‘innovation’, Johnson ran rear exhausts rather than the usual side exits after finding it developed better horsepower and his driver LeeRoy Yarborough took victory.
Johnson also ran a NASCAR with Darrell Waltrip as the driver where a lever in the cabin let hundreds of pounds of headshot pellets out during the race due to officials only weighing the cars before the race.
In recent times, Michael Waltrip Racing used jet fuel in the 2007 Daytona 500 and officials discover an ‘illegal substance’ in the intake manifold in the pursuit of more horsepower. This led to heavy penalties for the team, while the crew chief and director being dismissed following the event.
‘The King’ Richard Petty was among those to take an interpretive view of the rules, but he was caught and sanctioned.
In 1983, it was discovered wax was wedged into the engine cylinders to make them appear legal, but melted during the race and power increased. This was only discovered because an official noticed the left-hand-side tyres were larger.
However, 15 years earlier was when ‘The King’ was at the centre of controversy after debuting a textured roof. Rumours surrounded the circumstances of the textured roof such as acid dipping and pockets in the roof supposed to catch air, but more questions were asked when it separated from the rest of the car.
Carl Long was heavily fined in 2009 when his engine was deemed to be oversized by 0.17 cubic inches, which led to a $200,000 fine and a 12 week suspension. The fine was not paid and some eight years passed before Long came to an agreement to allow him into the Cup Series paddock again.
Others include Bobby Allison’s bumper falling off easily in 1982 as after the incident he picked up speed. Jimmie Johnson and his crew chief Chad Knaus also successfully developed a track bar adjuster to improve rear window air flow, while nitrous was used in 1976 leading to mass disqualifications.
One story, which is not about cheating relates to Jeff Gordon and his legendary T-Rex. Hendrick Motorsport went through the rules and found all the loopholes to develop the ultimate NASCAR. After dominating at the 1997 All-Star race, NASCAR banned it from competition despite being legal.
This is just an insight to a few of the cheating scandals or ‘innovations’ from NASCAR making it holding one of the most intriguing histories in the motorsport world.