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Good CHEATING stories?

Discussion in 'The Hokey Ass Message Board' started by Groucho, Feb 15, 2007.

  1. Anyone got any good Drag or NASCAR cheating stories? I heard a famous Pro Stock racer from the 70's had weights, spring loaded in his headliner. On the "launch" the weights were thrown rearward over the rear tires for traction. As the "G" forces diminished, the springs would return the weights to the forward postion to drop the nose down for aerodynamic gain. Whadda ya got?
     
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  2. Larry T
    Joined: Nov 24, 2004
    Posts: 7,875

    Larry T
    Member

    There was a Mustang that used to run stock class around here. He ran in a class that required him to have a 260. He won a lot. They P&G'd the car to check cubic inches and he always checked legal. One day, after he won, the P&G'd a different cylinder than number 1 and it checked 289. Seems he sleeved the number one cylinder to 260 specs and left the others 289. Worked for quite a while.
    Larry T
     
  3. Doc.
    Joined: Jul 16, 2005
    Posts: 3,558

    Doc.
    Member Emeritus

    In road racing... some tracks have brakeing markers before the turns at the long end of a straight. I know a guy who has been known to sneak out about 3:00 am and move them all back a bit to cause people to brake early going into a turn. He also has a button on his steering wheel which causes his brake lights to come on. If someone is following him close, they tend to brake as a reaction to the lights comming on. SSHHH you didn't hear that from me. "B.A." (a local hero) tells a story about he and his brother racing when they first started out. They ran identical looking cars, one would be legal, the other one would not pass teach. The illegal car usually won the race. One car was #13 and one car was #31. The numbers on the door were magnetic vinyl. You know the rest.

    Doc.
     
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  4. There was a guy running a vette in the '50s in the NW that bored one bank, and left the toher stock. When the other crews filed a grievance he would always pull the same bank. So finally they wised up a dropped enough cash for him to pull both sides.

    I had a friend from the Portland area in the later '60s that had a Healy 3000 with a souped to the max inline GM 6 in it. One season he went through the trouble to dress the mill to look like the Healy (at a glance) and tried to run in stock class instead of gas class. He pulled it off a couple of times before he got blackballed from a track down near woodburn.

    Used to be a guy up in Iowa that had the worlds longest screwdriver, he would try and retune your carb in the stageing lanes. I don't think he ever pulled it off but it was good for a laugh.
     

  5. Weighed in at San Fernando dragstrip back in the day . . . first time out for the Rocket Motor powered Shoebox coupe.

    We were hoping to fall into D/Gas, but got stuck in C/Gas instead.

    While the car was being weighed I noticed little brother standing on the other side of the car and grinning.
    He was standing on the scales.

    Kinda clever I thought.

    We didn't get caught, but it was a darned good thing we didn't get into D/Gas.
    They were running considerably faster than C/Gas.
    A little backwards to say the least, but at the time many of the C/Gas cars were engine swapped street runners and most of the D/Gas cars were 55-56 Chevys from local tune-up shops who were running right on the national record and in the case of a couple of them, faster.

    We won a lot of trophies in C/Gas, that due to being there a lot and the majority of the time, the C/Gas record holders weren't there and that made for some pretty even-up racing for all us street runnin' guys.

    Sometimes things work out for the best no matter how hard you try to screw it up....:D
     
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  6. Yo Baby
    Joined: Jul 11, 2004
    Posts: 2,811

    Yo Baby
    Member

    I heard that Reher/Morrison got popped in the 70's for NOS.
    The story goes that the bottles were molded into the hood scoop and fogged over the tops of the carbs and that the hood pins made the electrical connection.
    When you come in for tech what's the first thing to go to the wayside? The hood.LOL

    A couple of us got together on the intake man. and heads of my freinds "street stock".We ported the shit outta the heads and port matched a Q-jet Bowtie intake and modified the casting, casting #'s
    and ports with coarse sand and small bits of granite to make it all appear as cast.
     
  7. PRO 48 fleetline
    Joined: Jan 26, 2007
    Posts: 426

    PRO 48 fleetline
    BANNED
    from ohio

    In the 90's Jerry Eckman got busted in pro stock for concealing a nitrous bottle built into his fuel cell a portion of the cell was boxed off inside that hid the bottle and small lines ran trought the fuel lines. got his car impounded right around the same time Rusty glidden got busted and to clear himself offored to help nhra bust others by help doing tech
     
  8. Not really cheating but i heard Grumpy Jenkins would buy ALL the small block cylinder heads in his area for a class where no porting was allowed. He flowed all the heads, kept the best ones, and returned all the rest
     
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  9. stan292
    Joined: Dec 6, 2002
    Posts: 858

    stan292
    Member

    Back in "the day", the Ramchargers team got caught with a set of slicks mounted on their super stocker that weighed about 200 lbs each.

    Once off the scales, they'd change to a "regular" set (not filled with concrete, or whatever). Voila! - a car that was 300+ lbs lighter than the competition!

    I'm guessing they weren't the only guys to pull this one off.
     
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  10. Would have been fun to see the tech make them do a burnout as part of tech inspection.
     
  11. Gotgas
    Joined: Jul 22, 2004
    Posts: 7,175

    Gotgas
    Member
    from DFW USA

    Friend of mine built a '65 Chevelle that had a Reher-Morrison 572, a small plate, and TH400 / 9" rear... and nothing else. Not even a dinky roll bar.

    So of course he got kicked out when it ran a high-5 on its first pass.

    He showed up next weekend with a full 8pt cage, nicely padded and everything. The tech inspector was very impressed! Until he rested his hand against it to get a closer look at the interior of the car... and all that PVC pipe collapsed. The look on his face when he picked himself up out of the seat was solid gold... hahahaaaa.
     
  12. When I was in CT back in the late eighties/early nineties...Waterford speedbowl had a strictly stock class, no wedge, don't play with cross weights class.
    After seeing some questionable cars in tech.....the officials let all the cars go to the track and line up............ going in the wrong direction.
    First lap, half the cars went off the track.....the hard way.:eek:
     
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  13. RacerRick
    Joined: May 16, 2005
    Posts: 2,756

    RacerRick
    Member

    I used to have a car that will remain nameless that had a dual stage nitrous setup. A bigshot plate on top and an undermanifold system on the intake that was fed through the back of the block just above the bellhousing. One bottle was in the truck and the other was in the dash behind the glove compartment with a remote bottle opening. Its blow off tube went under car into the exhaust system, along with the purge. I would usually purge during the burnout so you couldn't see anything.

    When racing, if they bitched too much we would go out back and disconnect the bottle. The big shot plate was only jetted for 150hp on the nitrous side and 180hp on the fuel so it was rich going down the track and you could see the smoke from the rich condition coming out the back when we hit the button. Everyone could tell when we hit that kit. It also has the solinoids mounted right at the plate so it hit hard.

    The undermanifold fogger setup was jetted a little leaner than standard so there was no extra smoke when hitting it. It was jetted for 350hp and on a jacobs nitrous mastermind off of a microswitch on the gas pedal. Since the solinoids where a bit away and the nitrous mastermind was setup soft, you couldn't tell we were spraying. Won a little bit of money with that car and put myself though college.
     
  14. Back in my drag racing days, the guy that built my transmissions, also built several for the roundy racers. There was a class that had to use stock auto trans. He would cut open a converter and make it solid, no fluid coupling, and weld it back up. So it was effectively like a direct drive or in/out box. When the tech inspectors would look under, the converter body was there and appeared to be functional, when all it really was a hollow body.

    It was also funny the machine shop where I had engine work done, the round track engine claimer class guys would spend lots of money on a $1000 engine. So much that they would actually pick their stuff up late night, when no one would see them at the machine shop and what they were getting. Several stories about making aftermarket parts to look like factory pieces. Alum intakes that had iron filings put on to be magnetic, etc.
     
  15. HemiRambler
    Joined: Aug 26, 2005
    Posts: 4,208

    HemiRambler
    Member

    A friend of mine used to put a couple drops of food coloring in their fuel and then act sorta guilty when people were around their pits. It convinced the competition that they WERE cheating and when protested they always passed. It was a mind game that probably worked better than they ever hoped.
     
  16. Low
    Joined: Jan 28, 2002
    Posts: 477

    Low
    Member

    I cant remember who did it, but I heard a story of a guy who turned his bell housing into a supercharger. He discoverd that there was positive pressure coming out of it so he filled it with foam and had two openings. One to let air in, and the other hooked to a hose leading up to his carburetor. He said that at about 5000 RPM he was getting 10 pounds of boost. An extra 25 horsepower and nobody knew.
     
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  17. 29 sedanman
    Joined: Mar 22, 2005
    Posts: 2,282

    29 sedanman
    Member
    from Indy

    I always heard about Bob Glidden crashing his prostock car and getting out and covering the intake manifold with his jacket. Does anyone know anything about this?

    There was also a story in Hot Rod Magazine a few years back that showed a fastest street car class car that had ben wrecked and in the wreckage you could se a hidden NOS bottle. Turns out the fellow who owned the car had no idea it was there. It had been left there by the previous owner.
     
  18. bigdreamsnobux
    Joined: Oct 6, 2005
    Posts: 222

    bigdreamsnobux
    Member

    Friend of mine owns the original LeMans winning GT 40 (and had a couple of other race versions too) and had some cool stories.

    He told me of how the cars had to run a certain ride height to pass inspection. So, the Ford team would put blocks of wood in the springs to increase the ride height, when the race started, the driver (Dan Gurney, etc.) would hit the curbing on the corners a little too sharp, which would jar the car enough to expand the springs and knock them loose, the car would then sit lower and be more aerodynamic, etc.

    Don't ya just love it when the FACTORY sponsored team is a bunch of cheating bastards too? :D
     
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  19. lowbudget
    Joined: Feb 10, 2007
    Posts: 2

    lowbudget
    Member
    from sw penna.

    Smokey Yunick I believe.....
     
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  20. 6t5frlane
    Joined: Dec 8, 2004
    Posts: 2,399

    6t5frlane
    Member
    from New York

    Nascar......Toyota+ Waltrip = Cheating
     
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  21. BigMikeC
    Joined: Apr 18, 2006
    Posts: 451

    BigMikeC
    Member

    I was there and saw him do that. Not because he was hidding anything illegal, but because he put a lot of R&D into it, and didn't want to share it with any snoopers. Bob is an honest guy.
     
  22. revkev6
    Joined: Jun 13, 2006
    Posts: 3,352

    revkev6
    Member
    from ma

    what about getting kicked out of a track when you weren't cheating?? I ran a 1/4 mile dirt oval with minisprints. (for those that don't know they are just midgets that run full mod 1200cc motorcycle engine) the track owner's son got tired of building and blowing up expensive motorcycle motors so he convinced his father to open the class up to volkswagon engined midgets with a 130cube limit. He had access to a bunch of older midget parts that were that size and thought he would be faster to boot.

    I liked the idea and built a car to suit the rules. Only I knew better than to use a bunch of old discarded parts as a basis for a race motor. I went out and got a complete new autocraft race engine built with a big bore, short stroke and long rods. that motor wound out better than any flat four has a right. I won my class championship the first two seasons I ran it and then left to race pavement midgets for a year. when I ran out of funds touring on pavement I went back to my dirt track with a newer chassis and the same engine. the track owners kid gave up on the VW engine idea so out of the 5 guys that ran them I was the only one left. The newer chassis Hooked up like the prom queen and the quarterback. After 6 of the 22 races that year the race director told me that my engine was illegal. I said it's perfectly legal, I'll pull the head for you if you want. He said, just don't come back with that car. turns out EVERY other person that raced in that class had whined at how bad I was beating there asses. the funniest part was that although I had only raced 6 times I still finished 10th in points and got a check at the end of the year.
     
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  23. chuckspeed
    Joined: Sep 13, 2005
    Posts: 1,643

    chuckspeed
    Member

    Similar setup on an orange Olds Omega here in Detroit in the 80's; guy ran galley nitrous on a siamese smallblock; let folks think he was runnin' a hot 350. Won a LOT of races thataway.

    Other cheat in Stock class drag racing was to pull all but one compression ring to lower frictional losses; engine would smoke at the big end, but it freed up a good 30-40 HP.

    Last cheat involves heads; while there are rules against porting in Stock classes, there are no rules against 'freshening' the valve job. The most restrictive part of the port is the area just before the valve seat; adjusting the angle of the cutter on a three angle valve job *just so* was umm...legit...sorta, but freed up 30 HP on a Factory Stock car I'm real familiar with.
     
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  24. Leeroy
    Joined: Dec 21, 2005
    Posts: 71

    Leeroy
    Member
    from Boerne, TX




    That was Smokey Yunick. He always studied the gray area of the rule book. The colleciton of books that he wrote are a lot of fun to read.

    One of my favorite cheats is the 7/8 scale Chevelle that he built for NASCAR. As I remember from the book, he never really admits all of the things he did to it- he said you need to see it in person to figure it out.
     
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  25. Leeroy
    Joined: Dec 21, 2005
    Posts: 71

    Leeroy
    Member
    from Boerne, TX


    That was Smokey Yunick. My favorite cheat of his was the 7/8 scale Chevelle that he built for NASCAR. His autobiographical book collection is a lot of fun to read and full of cheats and rule book grey area stuff.
     
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  26. Leeroy
    Joined: Dec 21, 2005
    Posts: 71

    Leeroy
    Member
    from Boerne, TX


    Sorry about that my computer did something crazy....
     
  27. mustangsix
    Joined: Mar 7, 2005
    Posts: 1,403

    mustangsix
    Member

    Not cheating, because at the time the rules never addressed it. Back in the 60's, FIA Cobras had spring loaded windshields that would lean back at speed and pop back to vertical when moving slowly.

    And Jim Hall's "sucker" Chapparrals took advantage of a rules "void" using a small engine to create a vacuum. Later, when auxilliary sucker engines were outlawed, someone turned the wheels into fans that would suck air from under their car.

    And there are tales in many classes of endurance racing where fuel tanks are limited by size, the racers would add a VERY large fuel line.

    Smokey's 7/8ths scale Chevelle is legendary.

    Reverse rotation engines, offset chassis.....the list is endless..
     
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  28. Junkyard Jan
    Joined: Jan 7, 2005
    Posts: 738

    Junkyard Jan
    Member Emeritus

    I used to be Race Director of a backwood asphalt 1/4 mile oval over in Pa. One of the races for the Strictly Stocks I ran was called "The Mystery Race". I'd line up 10 cars single file, then tell my pit help what we were going to do. When I waved the cars onto the track, I pointed either right or left. The cars followed the way my finger pointed. Then, they raced counterclockwise or clockwise., whichever I'd decided upon. At first the driver's hated running "backward",...claimed it ruined the feathering of their tires but most got damn good at it..:)

    Jan
     
  29. There's that old stock car story about somebody--I don't recall, Junior Johnson or Coo-Coo Marlin or maybe even Waltrip....seems like it might have happened here in Nashville, too-----anyway, this driver won a big race because he didn't pit for fuel when everybody else did, so naturally his car was suspect. The officials removed the fuel tank and checked to make sure it wasn't illegally too big...of course, it checked out legal, and the driver says "See? I told ya so!" and hopped into his car, fired it up and drove back to his pit....with no fuel tank.
    Been years since I heard that, but it's supposed to be true.
     
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  30. Choptop
    Joined: Jun 19, 2001
    Posts: 3,303

    Choptop
    Member

    Kenny Parks (Wally's bro) and my Dad (ChopPop) used to run jalopies at Carrel Speedway in LA in the late 40's. Kenny had WON the race with a full race cam in his 34 V8 coupe, the rules said stock cam only. So after the race Kenny swung through the pits, picked up his crewman and drove the car to his house on Kansas Ave. in South Gate. The race officials were looking for Kenny to give him the prize money, but Kenny was at home swapping out the hot cam for a stock one. The race official knew where Kenny lived and swung by after the races to give Kenny the purse... to find Kenny innocently wrenching on the car in the garage....... :D
     

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