Thread: Smokey

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There was an article in Hot Rod (I think) where he talked about some of the outright cheats that he pulled off over the years. All were very clever and most were funny. Lightening flywheels by removing the ring gear and drilling holes radially and then replacing the ring gear to hide the holes. Reversing the rotation on the engine which he claimed made the car better coming out of a corner. Duplicating factory markings on hot rod parts to get through tech. One inch fuel lines that held an extra gallon or so of fuel.

One story he told was that in the early days, tech would pour a measured can of fuel into your car to check for oversize fuel tanks. He would take a floor jack and jack a big dent into the tank so that his cars actually held less than the tech can. Just before the race he would use an air hose to blow the tank back out to shape and full oversize capacity.

He was protested many times by other racers. As he said, they knew we were cheating because they were cheating and we were beating them. He told another story about actually assembling an illegal engine while being watched and ok'd by tech inspectors. After which the engine was sealed with steel bands.

Of course, Smokey had quite the reputation as a BS'er. He was also a great self-promoter. So take any of this with all the seriousness you want to. Still, the article was very entertaining and had me laughing all the way through.