Driving off in a vehicle without a gas tank, with extra fuel stashed inside the frame. Showing up with a racecar scaled down to a fraction of its normal size. Aluminum bumpers, nitrous oxide canisters and a spoiler coming off the roof. Filling the roll bar with sand to make inspection weight, and then letting it all run out. Placing a basketball in the fuel cell that could be inflated when capacity was checked, and deflated for the race.
They’re all tactics attributed to the late, great Henry “Smokey” Yunick, a NASCAR engine builder, car owner, crew chief and loophole-finder extraordinaire. During the 1950s and 60s, the man in his trademark white coveralls and cowboy hat became an iconoclastic figure through innovation that didn’t always sit well with the sanctioning body. He was the impetus for many of the technical rules in place today, and an inspiration to modern crew chiefs who push the sport’s gray areas to their limits.
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