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> Smokey Yunick Oh, man. I'm not a huge NASCAR fan, but that guy. That guy. He was an absolute master of "But the rules didn't say I couldn't..." and probab

by Syonyk 6y ago

> Smokey Yunick Oh, man. I'm not a huge NASCAR fan, but that guy. That guy. He was an absolute master of "But the rules didn't say I couldn't..." and probably is responsible for half the thickness of the modern rulebook on his own! "What? The fuel tank capacity can't have an inflated basketball in it that springs a leak during the race, leaving us with more fuel capacity?" "What? The fuel lines have to be a short path between the tank and engine? Now, look, nowhere in this here book does it say I can't stuff the frame rails with a couple hundred feet of spiraled fuel line. It gets an extra gallon or two in the car? Really? Huh..." "Nowhere in the book does it say the bodywork has to actually match the size or positioning of the stock car the race car is based on. I can't help it if nobody else has totally redone the bodywork to improve aerodynamics... oh, OK, you're bringing cardboard templates next season, got it, that trick is done." The guy was an absolute master of "creative advantages that weren't actually illegal at the time they were used."

jborichevskiy 6y ago
> "What? The fuel tank capacity can't have an inflated basketball in it that springs a leak during the race, leaving us with more fuel capacity?" Pardon my ignorance- what is the motivation for temporarily reducing the fuel capacity in this example? And why was it disallowed?
- BrentOzar 6y ago
  Your fuel tank was only allowed to hold a certain amount of fuel because if you had more, you could go farther between pit stops, thereby covering more laps while the other drivers were stopped for gas. He would temporarily meet the small tank regulations during inspection, but under race conditions, the ball would burst, allowing for more space in the tank, which would get filled up with more fuel than his competitors at the first pit stop.
  - jborichevskiy 6y ago
    That makes sense, thanks. Clever!
  - samstave 6y ago
    How was he "caught" if thats the term?
    - TheGallopedHigh 6y ago
      By the mere fact that the car wasn’t pitting as often. Car was likely inspected afterwards.
      - bronson 6y ago
        Most of them weren't pitting as often as they should.
    - Syonyk 6y ago
      I would assume that by some point, if one of his cars won, the officials just took the whole thing apart to find out what sort of bizarre loophole he'd found that met the letter of the requirements while totally violating the spirit. His antics weren't secret, even at the time he was working. He was just really good at it.
      - TwoBit 6y ago
        And nobody considers that dishonest? It's cheating in the spirit of the rules if not the letter of the rules.
        Wxc2jjJmST9XWWL 6y ago
        Nope ; Motorsport is always drivers' skills coupled with engineering ingenuity. It's always about "what can I come up with, which gives me an edge, and still somehow is within the rules?" I don't know anything about Nascar, but the history of Formula 1 is full of such little tricks as well. It's just easier to regulate "other sports" than it is to regulate sports that come coupled with a lot of technological involvement. If sth gives you an edge for half a season until rules are adjusted, that might be enough to win a championship. It's a cat-and-mouse game, but it's also exciting, and important for the whole thrill of it. Decades past Gordon Murray designed a fan quite literally sucking cars to the ground, which somehow was within regulations, because no one even considered something like that https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb6DAmm7sZg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb6DAmm7sZg In rally driving, they would sometimes come up with fake reasons for a start to be delayed, so they wouldn't have to drive in the front car's dust all the time. Audi entering with their 4-wheel car back in the days was only possible, because they pushed for a rule change and no one else really knew what was coming. Sometimes manufacturers straight up "cheated" (almost, sometimes for real) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lo4dGTrzr8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lo4dGTrzr8 ; it's a thin line, but also what makes it exciting. I would say that it's the hacker's / engineering ethos almost. What can I do within the framework? Whether it's building a bridge (to make it more stable while still following this brash design), a road car (how can I create something fun, with torque, sound, emotion, down force, power, but a nice shape, and still get a road legal car within environmental regulations), computer games (consider https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izxXGuVL21o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izxXGuVL21o ; computer games are full of hacks to get the most out of the hardware), even legal (how can we pay almost no taxes, while not being busted for tax avoidance?) ; not every ingenuity is necessarily good, but it will always be cat-and-mouse, that's the point of living. This got meta quick ... and quite a more detailed answer than I anticipated. Sorry for that, hope I gave you a different perspective though.
  - nemo44x 6y ago
    If you’re not cheating you’re not trying.
- ska 6y ago
  I suspect that it increased the fuel capacity from the nominal "max" at race start, so when you hit a pit stop you can put more in.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- WalterBright 6y ago
  Fuel capacities are reduced to minimize the fire in fiery crashes. But lower fuel capacity means more pit stops, which the racer wants to minimize. Temporarily reducing fuel capacity means the car passes tech inspection, but really has more capacity.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Syonyk 6y ago
  Fuel tank capacity is required to be 10 gallons. Say, 20 laps or so. They check, at the tech inspection, that your tank doesn't hold more than 10 gallons. Great. Except, once you deflate the basketball (or get creative with routing fuel lines all over the car), you actually have 11-12 gallons onboard. Which means, at the end of the race, when everyone else has to pit, you can make the "risky option" to skip the final pit stop, keep rolling, and, well, surprise of surprise, make it over the line (in first place) before you flame out.
  - jborichevskiy 6y ago
    Ah, that explains the fuel lines as well. Very interesting!
- zombielinux 6y ago
  When you qualify, your fuel tank is only allowed to hold X gallons. With the basketball inside, it held X gallons. When the basketball sprang a leak and deflated, the tank held X+Y gallons, netting a slight advantage between pit stops (an extra lap or two over 500 miles adds up)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- jakogut 6y ago
  I assume the rule book specified a maximum fuel tank size, to ensure that teams were making roughly equal pit stops for refueling, etc. Installing a larger fuel tank with the volume taken up by an adjustable air reservoir means the tank starts at legal capacity, and increases in capacity after the race begins, allowing fewer stops for refueling.
kingsuper20 6y ago
The aero belly of his 1968 Camaro was interesting. The SBC-powered Indy car (probably the last of home-garage built vehicles for that race), the time he drove a NASCAR car back from an impound without the gas tank, etc. Not to say that cheating didn't happen elsewhere. Check out the front-end sheet metal of the Trans-Am Boss 302s. Use of the headlight holes for brake ducting. The inline Autolite carb. There were some good minds at Holman-Moody, Kar Kraft, Bud Moore, etc.
mysterydip 6y ago
He also had an infamous Fiero with a "hot vapor engine" that was claimed 50+ mpg and 250hp (when the stock 4cyl made ~90hp, it was the 80s after all): https://www.legendarycollectorcars.com/featured-vehicles/other-feature-cars/smokey-yunicks-hot-vapor-fiero-51-mpg-and-0-60-in-less-than-6-seconds-see-and-hear-it-run-in-our-exclusive-video/ https://www.legendarycollectorcars.com/featured-vehicles/oth...

by Syonyk 6y ago

jborichevskiy 6y ago

> "What? The fuel tank capacity can't have an inflated basketball in it that springs a leak during the race, leaving us with more fuel capacity?" Pardon my ignorance- what is the motivation for temporarily reducing the fuel capacity in this example? And why was it disallowed?

BrentOzar 6y ago
Your fuel tank was only allowed to hold a certain amount of fuel because if you had more, you could go farther between pit stops, thereby covering more laps while the other drivers were stopped for gas. He would temporarily meet the small tank regulations during inspection, but under race conditions, the ball would burst, allowing for more space in the tank, which would get filled up with more fuel than his competitors at the first pit stop.
- jborichevskiy 6y ago
  That makes sense, thanks. Clever!
- samstave 6y ago
  How was he "caught" if thats the term?
  - TheGallopedHigh 6y ago
    By the mere fact that the car wasn’t pitting as often. Car was likely inspected afterwards.
    - bronson 6y ago
      Most of them weren't pitting as often as they should.
  - Syonyk 6y ago
    I would assume that by some point, if one of his cars won, the officials just took the whole thing apart to find out what sort of bizarre loophole he'd found that met the letter of the requirements while totally violating the spirit. His antics weren't secret, even at the time he was working. He was just really good at it.
    - TwoBit 6y ago
      And nobody considers that dishonest? It's cheating in the spirit of the rules if not the letter of the rules.
      - Wxc2jjJmST9XWWL 6y ago
        Nope ; Motorsport is always drivers' skills coupled with engineering ingenuity. It's always about "what can I come up with, which gives me an edge, and still somehow is within the rules?" I don't know anything about Nascar, but the history of Formula 1 is full of such little tricks as well. It's just easier to regulate "other sports" than it is to regulate sports that come coupled with a lot of technological involvement. If sth gives you an edge for half a season until rules are adjusted, that might be enough to win a championship. It's a cat-and-mouse game, but it's also exciting, and important for the whole thrill of it. Decades past Gordon Murray designed a fan quite literally sucking cars to the ground, which somehow was within regulations, because no one even considered something like that https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb6DAmm7sZg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hb6DAmm7sZg In rally driving, they would sometimes come up with fake reasons for a start to be delayed, so they wouldn't have to drive in the front car's dust all the time. Audi entering with their 4-wheel car back in the days was only possible, because they pushed for a rule change and no one else really knew what was coming. Sometimes manufacturers straight up "cheated" (almost, sometimes for real) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lo4dGTrzr8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lo4dGTrzr8 ; it's a thin line, but also what makes it exciting. I would say that it's the hacker's / engineering ethos almost. What can I do within the framework? Whether it's building a bridge (to make it more stable while still following this brash design), a road car (how can I create something fun, with torque, sound, emotion, down force, power, but a nice shape, and still get a road legal car within environmental regulations), computer games (consider https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izxXGuVL21o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izxXGuVL21o ; computer games are full of hacks to get the most out of the hardware), even legal (how can we pay almost no taxes, while not being busted for tax avoidance?) ; not every ingenuity is necessarily good, but it will always be cat-and-mouse, that's the point of living. This got meta quick ... and quite a more detailed answer than I anticipated. Sorry for that, hope I gave you a different perspective though.
- nemo44x 6y ago
  If you’re not cheating you’re not trying.
ska 6y ago
I suspect that it increased the fuel capacity from the nominal "max" at race start, so when you hit a pit stop you can put more in.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
WalterBright 6y ago
Fuel capacities are reduced to minimize the fire in fiery crashes. But lower fuel capacity means more pit stops, which the racer wants to minimize. Temporarily reducing fuel capacity means the car passes tech inspection, but really has more capacity.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Syonyk 6y ago
Fuel tank capacity is required to be 10 gallons. Say, 20 laps or so. They check, at the tech inspection, that your tank doesn't hold more than 10 gallons. Great. Except, once you deflate the basketball (or get creative with routing fuel lines all over the car), you actually have 11-12 gallons onboard. Which means, at the end of the race, when everyone else has to pit, you can make the "risky option" to skip the final pit stop, keep rolling, and, well, surprise of surprise, make it over the line (in first place) before you flame out.
- jborichevskiy 6y ago
  Ah, that explains the fuel lines as well. Very interesting!
zombielinux 6y ago
When you qualify, your fuel tank is only allowed to hold X gallons. With the basketball inside, it held X gallons. When the basketball sprang a leak and deflated, the tank held X+Y gallons, netting a slight advantage between pit stops (an extra lap or two over 500 miles adds up)
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jakogut 6y ago
I assume the rule book specified a maximum fuel tank size, to ensure that teams were making roughly equal pit stops for refueling, etc. Installing a larger fuel tank with the volume taken up by an adjustable air reservoir means the tank starts at legal capacity, and increases in capacity after the race begins, allowing fewer stops for refueling.

kingsuper20 6y ago

The aero belly of his 1968 Camaro was interesting. The SBC-powered Indy car (probably the last of home-garage built vehicles for that race), the time he drove a NASCAR car back from an impound without the gas tank, etc. Not to say that cheating didn't happen elsewhere. Check out the front-end sheet metal of the Trans-Am Boss 302s. Use of the headlight holes for brake ducting. The inline Autolite carb. There were some good minds at Holman-Moody, Kar Kraft, Bud Moore, etc.

mysterydip 6y ago

He also had an infamous Fiero with a "hot vapor engine" that was claimed 50+ mpg and 250hp (when the stock 4cyl made ~90hp, it was the 80s after all): https://www.legendarycollectorcars.com/featured-vehicles/other-feature-cars/smokey-yunicks-hot-vapor-fiero-51-mpg-and-0-60-in-less-than-6-seconds-see-and-hear-it-run-in-our-exclusive-video/ https://www.legendarycollectorcars.com/featured-vehicles/oth...