Cheating, or creative thinking?!?

R

rvincent21

rvincent21
As ive been kinda bored at work lately, ive been reading a thread on another site about various ways drivers from all types of racing found ways around rules, exploited gray areas, and downright stumped tech officials. I know there are a ton of seasoned drivers and pit guys on here, so lets hear some of your stories. Just for fun no accusations or bad blood.
 
What Dale is doing is cheating but creative thinking about the rules, what they mean and how to use those rules to your best advantage is not cheating. The way I tend to think about it is this; the rules and how they are policed will tend to guide you toward whatever is the restriction in the class and they will show you right where to work usually but not always. Sometimes they can actually misdirect peoples' efforts and this is clearly seen if you look around in a class with a lot of restrictions.

For instance as an example; just because the rules forbid porting does not mean that the induction system doesn't spend a lot of time on the flow bench.....
 
DaveMcLain said:
What Dale is doing is cheating but creative thinking about the rules, what they mean and how to use those rules to your best advantage is not cheating. The way I tend to think about it is this; the rules and how they are policed will tend to guide you toward whatever is the restriction in the class and they will show you right where to work usually but not always. Sometimes they can actually misdirect peoples' efforts and this is clearly seen if you look around in a class with a lot of restrictions.

For instance as an example; just because the rules forbid porting does not mean that the induction system doesn't spend a lot of time on the flow bench.....
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You're right Dave. I love innovation and a way to work within the rules. Few examples come to mind. As in smokey yunick and Jeff Gordon's T. rex car.
The true mechanical genius comes out and it's a sight to be seen, however if you think any local racer is gonna get on here and snitch on themselves lol. Not gonna happen. Any advantage is secrecy ;)

Truth be told. Races are won in the garage
 
Im not naive enough to think current racers are gonna get on here and incriminate themselves. Im more looking for the stories from years gone by where people found the gray areas of the rule book. Anyone that admits to something theyre currently doing is stupid. But wheres the harm in someone tossing out something they did ten years ago?
 
I have heard that some hobby car guys back in the day would use a 461/462 head (double hump) and grind the humps off the head and dab some body putty to give the area a cast iron look .. made the head look to be a 2 barell head------------------------------------------NOW I WOULD NEVER DO ANY THING LIKE THAT
 
I don't think any racers are going to get on here and give away any of their "cheats". With that said I feel that there are way too many racers who believe in some sort of magic part which might be some sort of cam, carburetor, shock, tire treatment etc. While all of these things are very important there is no magic and it is all about the combination. I feel that right now there is WAY too much monkey see-monkey do in racing and if you're doing stuff because "that's the way it's done" then you are probably far behind those who are trying new ideas.
 
A good one would be have an illegal car, that does not fit the rules, then have the board members declare it legal and win a lot of races. If other racers complain the board has officials tear them down. That's a good way to cheat, and run racers off, but that would not happen around here though, our officials have more integrity than that. Its the board members you have to look out for.
 
You asked for ways people cheat so I told. Here are some of the ones I know of from years ago.

Rules years ago stated no fuel injection in modified class so they ran a Pressurized Carburetor. Rules where clarified the next year.

What really sucks when you run an illegal part like an intake for several years then take it off and put a legal one on and car runs better with a the legal one.
 
years ago in the old bomber days and street stock day two thick shims in a chevy rear end helped it pull pozzy. God rest his soul but carl used to check mine a lot. thank goodness for "bent" housings. have a good evening.
 
another bending of the rules that I would never consider doing is running a coupler button instead of a clutch--ya know the old sayin you aint cheatin till ya gets caught
 
My grandpa used to tell a story of a local racer who ground the #s off an intake and glued them back on a different style intake and he scraped them off as a whole piece. Haha
 
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Being a tech official for a couple years at a couple different tracks, I saw some creative, and some blatantly obvious cheating. Found a 400 block that had the casting numbers altered. The guy had ground off the original # and made a mold off a 350 block. A little jbweld and some spray paint and he had a 400 block with the #3970010 on it. Another car had the ends of the rear trailing arms cut out and had welded nuts inside the arms with heim joints screwed in them. It worked like the monoballs now but they were adjustable as well.
 
Unlimited said:
You asked for ways people cheat so I told. Here are some of the ones I know of from years ago.

Rules years ago stated no fuel injection in modified class so they ran a Pressurized Carburetor. Rules where clarified the next year.

What really sucks when you run an illegal part like an intake for several years then take it off and put a legal one on and car runs better with a the legal one.
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Hey! We only ran that intake 1 year till we got caught!! LOL Funny thing was how we got checked every night after that and the rocket scientist had the carb in his hands and never looked at it! LMAO
 
ok, back in the late 80's, late models with the spoiler heights being checked.... I watched one very popular late model driver (and a very good one at that) sit on the back quarter left side just in front of the spoiler over the LR tire. At Eldora, his crew pushed the car all the way from his trailer through inspection and back to his trailer with him sitting right there, laughing and joking with the officials ..... and, yes, when he finally did get off the car, the rear spoiler raised about 2 inches.....got away with it for years....
 
How do you beat UMP tech? Just bring some shiny baubles with you to the tech area. They will be mesmerized! Lmao

BTW I used baubles to make Doug more comfortable with my post. It means trinkets like jewelry etc
 
Last Street Stock season at TCS I was too broke to buy a decent engine so I picked up a used one from someone who shall remain nameless but I will forever be grateful to for cutting me a great deal. I knew it was totally illegal the day I bought it, but you do what you have to. It was an old B Mod engine built by Terry James, not even close to a legal SS engine even these days.

The guy who sold it to me just said run it till it dies or until you get fast enough to get to the front and start getting teched. In the meantime if you ain't up front, no one is going to care and you can work on other stuff to try and go faster. So I did.

Kept messing around with setup, tires, shocks, springs, scaling the car, weight percentages, etc until one night in hot laps I flat footed it all the way around TCS. Drove back in, told another guy who had been helping me with setup and stuff what I had just done and he said "well, that's about as good as its going to get then. Better start figuring out what you need to change next if you want to go faster." Well, that was gear, rear end, tires, etc.... All stuff I couldn't afford.

Toward the end of the year I ran the last double O in that car and every time I lifted a big puff of blue smoke shot out the headers. Sold the car the following summer when I realized I just didn't have the time or finances for a while to go racing. Still, that was a lot of fun, even if the engine was illegal. It never mattered anyway, never got close enough to the front to be teched but I learned a ton that year.
 
tod-how bout the time we went to mid way in Lebanon with our cars--my shit box (the old #1 sportsman)MIGHT have had a brinn--MIGHT have had a mag-MIGHT have had aluminum heads-ran 3d in the fall fling--in the tear down shack they looked every thing over and then DQd me for 2 bead locks on the right side KARMAS--- a MFr------ but then I am a SOB senile old basturd---I do not think that car was cheated up
 
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