175 replies to this topic

[Amphicar]

Yes - would have been shocking...revolting even...OK - that's ample.

Might have met with resistance by the mechanics concerned too!

Turning to Formula 1, how about the "water cooled brakes" wheeze employed by the DFV-powered teams during the 1982 season? Or, two years later, Ken Tyrrell's inclusion of lead shot when the reservoirs for his cars' water injection systems were topped-up after the race.

[GMACKIE]

Yes - would have been shocking...revolting even...OK - that's ample.

There was a BATTERY of similar posts in another thread......... 'Blood pressure'?

[D-Type]

In the very early days of the Safari there was a mass start and only a few controls in main towns. The story goes that in one area a new road had been built which was significantly shorter. Where this branched off a front runner pulled up on the old road and opened their bonnet and pretended to fix something. The opposition came along, gave a wave or at least some form of hand gesture and went up the old road. The drivers of the "broken down" car shut the bonnet and proceeded down the shorter new road.

Not cheating, but a nice tale.

[naparsei]

In racing everybody is looking for the unfair advantage. When I visited a Dutch national race for some sort of Renault cup (I think the Clio Cup of 2004 or thereabouts), you could hear the difference between some cars engine note. This is supposed to be a class with sealed engines!

Also, in the wonderful world of racing with sealed engines, there is the possiblility of buying better engines if you race in a class a bit longer... All engines are equal of course, but some are more equal than others. The difference can be about 5 bhp. That can mean a tenth on a lap but in a competitive series (where they throw away a 1000 Euro set of slicks after three laps because the edge is gone), 5 bhp is worth a lot.

Not all motors are equal. I race in a Spec Series in the US. If you are going to build 6 motors, you carefully measure every component and then build the #1 engine out of the best matched/balance components, without modifying any. It's perfectly legal - "parts bin blueprinting".

Penske was not always the portrait of virtue...
The book written by his best known driver (Mark Donohugh) wasn't called the unfair advantage for nuthin...

Back in the can Am days people wondered why the Camaros he was using were all fitted with a canvas covered top.
It seems that the cars were acid dipped to lighten the bodies for racing and the acid dipper left the bodies in the acid too long. The tops had holes in the metal. Penske had no choice but to cover it up with canvas.

In the book, it's a really funny story. Competitors assumed, due to Penske's reputation, that maybe the vinyl gave an aero advantage of something. The gig was up when an inspector leaned against the roof (after inspection) and his elbow pushed in. To race the car, Penske's team got a last minute showroom Camaro from the dealership and transplanted the roof...

That same year at the Glen, Swede Savage showed up with an A J Foyt entered 71 camaro that just didn't look right. Turned out it had been built by Smokey Yunick who had somewhow "massaged" the bodywork to gain some aerodynamic advantage, and sure enough, it recorded the fasted trap speed down the front straight (from top of the esses to the carousel turn). No matter - in the race the car caught on fire soon after the start and was a dnf. It is apparently alive in the vintage race world somewhere.

Robert Barg

Smokey had his hands in a lot of Camaros. I am sure you know this car: http://www.hotrodsus...age/camaro.html

[naparsei]

Also, more details and photos of Smokey's Chevelle car: http://www.canepacol...ed-5117058.html

[Lee Nicolle]

Not all motors are equal. I race in a Spec Series in the US. If you are going to build 6 motors, you carefully measure every component and then build the #1 engine out of the best matched/balance components, without modifying any. It's perfectly legal - "parts bin blueprinting".



In the book, it's a really funny story. Competitors assumed, due to Penske's reputation, that maybe the vinyl gave an aero advantage of something. The gig was up when an inspector leaned against the roof (after inspection) and his elbow pushed in. To race the car, Penske's team got a last minute showroom Camaro from the dealership and transplanted the roof...




Smokey had his hands in a lot of Camaros. I am sure you know this car: http://www.hotrodsus...age/camaro.html

What is the controversy? That car probably had less cheats than some. If it wasnt Smokey it would ever have been looked at. Cars with vinyl tops because the roofs had gone into holes
The Moffat 69 Mustang has most of those cheats, and the nose is obviuosly drooped, about1 1/2 " I beleive. It has convertible sill panels which are stiffer and much more . And that was an official Ford car.


The EB V8 Supercars all had cheater light weight shells, guards, bonnets etc so nothing is new.

[Tom Smith]

Foyt's Coyote always had it's turbo inlet, oil cooler, and radiator covers in place. Sheet lead.

[MonzaDriver]

Cheating has always been part of motor racing,
the funny thing is that all those people that believe themselves so smart,
in winning by cheating, never understood that they were doing the game,
of the like Ecclestone Mosley Dennis Montezemolo and so on.............
Because it's very easy for them, if someone disagree with their intentions about the future of F1 ( or motor racing)
to put under suspicion the cars of the team " raising his voice" because the rules are non existant.
So before you think you are so smart, by cheating, reflect a little bit more.
Because the real money are for those.................. not for you.

My best regards,
MonzaDriver.

[ronmac]

HI SELDO....Why does an Isuzu Gemini go quicker than a Holden Gemini..??
I just wondered...
(Mr Seldo..are you going to join us for Rons Quiz tomorrow (Wednesday 7 pm.Aussie Time ?? )

[Ray Bell]

They were badged Isuzu so they could run the twin-cam engines...

These were fitted in Japan, but not in Australia. They were also of greater capacity than the single cam engines used here.

[GMACKIE]

Lakeview Hillclimb, near Bungendore - around 1962. Peter Brown [Wolseley 1500] was beating me [VW Beetle] by half a second, so I removed air cleaners, slackened of the fan belt, and went 'flat' all the way up the hill. That knocked one second from my time, which meant I beat HIM by half a second.

My fan belt came right off just after the start, which meant an extra 7 HP. Peter informed me that he was on his way to the CAMS steward to protest. Although the rules said that the electrics must be working AT THE START, he intended to protest. When I asked him about the 'big' engine that he bought from Charlie Smith, he went home.

[CarlRabbidge]

As once informed by a former world champion, the only thing worse than getting caught cheating was to get behind in the cheating.

[ronmac]

THANK You Ray for your answer about the Isuzu Gemini,,,I Thought Seldo may answer
:Because our drivers were better : !!

[naparsei]

What is the controversy? That car probably had less cheats than some. If it wasnt Smokey it would ever have been looked at. Cars with vinyl tops because the roofs had gone into holes
The Moffat 69 Mustang has most of those cheats, and the nose is obviuosly drooped, about1 1/2 " I beleive. It has convertible sill panels which are stiffer and much more . And that was an official Ford car.


The EB V8 Supercars all had cheater light weight shells, guards, bonnets etc so nothing is new.

Lee, I didn't say there was a controversy - I was just adding additional information to prior posts.

The Yunick car (black and gold) and the Penske car (with the vinyl roof) were two different Camaros.

Obviously, many of the cars and probably all of the front runners had "cheats". It's still illegal, or it wouldn't be called cheating ;)

[mymemoryfails]

What about the time in the Gemini (spec) series out at Calder when , under the different starting procedure of the time, Peter Janson took off when the 1 minute board was shown? Cant remember if he was given 1 min penalty or dsq?

mymemoryfails

[Ray Bell]

May 23, 1976...

He started down the side of the track from the back of the grid, drove away from everyone and led the race. But he'd previously advised the Clerk of Course and the TV commentators he would do this.

He was shown the bad sportsmanship flag, then on three successive laps he ignored the black flag before pitting in what Tom Naughton describes as a dangerous manner. He then told the C of C what he thought of him and rejoined the race.

I haven't looked any further to see if any penalties were applied other than the one-minute penalty prescribed... I'm sure at least that went on.

This was the first general Gemini race, a precursor event featuring a lot of star drivers had taken place at the previous Calder meeting.

[Lee Nicolle]

May 23, 1976...

He started down the side of the track from the back of the grid, drove away from everyone and led the race. But he'd previously advised the Clerk of Course and the TV commentators he would do this.

He was shown the bad sportsmanship flag, then on three successive laps he ignored the black flag before pitting in what Tom Naughton describes as a dangerous manner. He then told the C of C what he thought of him and rejoined the race.

I haven't looked any further to see if any penalties were applied other than the one-minute penalty prescribed... I'm sure at least that went on.

This was the first general Gemini race, a precursor event featuring a lot of star drivers had taken place at the previous Calder meeting.

Stonie did a cartoon about that escapade

[seldo]

THANK You Ray for your answer about the Isuzu Gemini,,,I Thought Seldo may answer
:Because our drivers were better : !!

I'd assumed that was a given....;)

[Hank the Deuce]

The Moffat 69 Mustang has most of those cheats, and the nose is obviuosly drooped, about1 1/2 " I beleive. It has convertible sill panels which are stiffer and much more . And that was an official Ford car.


The EB V8 Supercars all had cheater light weight shells, guards, bonnets etc so nothing is new.

I was led to believe that the Moffat nose droop was in the vicinity of 2"... apparently the Trans-Am cars were made to partially restore (circa 1") of the cut that made this possible, but the Moffat car was here already... there was a LOT of work put into those Mustangs...

The EF Falcons were where the can of worms got opened iirc, but the EB would certainly have been lightened before them.

I recall that a certain "Rock star" car, built out of an old road car, had been acid-dipped to the point that the roof panel warped and had to be bogged up... its builder maintains that the dipping was done solely with a view to cleaning the body deadener and crud from the shell in the shortest time possible... but he has also gone on record as saying that the ridiculously low homologated weight for that vehicle was something that he viewed as significant in selecting and building the car... hotably, it was arguably the only vehicle of that particular type (that, and its successor), which made it anywhere near the homologated weight, with other examples carrying anything up to several hundred more kilos of lard... said team, in a later and equally successful iteration, apparently (according to fable, inuendo and general hearsay) utilised a marvellous ABS system which was built around a set of hydraulic proportioning valves and a pendulum actuator, which used the mass and movement of the pendulum under the effect of the car's inertia to proportion brake bias to the most heavily-weighted corner.... until it was found...

and I also enjoyed the Harry Firth story of how he applied the numbers crooked on one Bathurst car, so that people were looking intently at the sloppy signwriting, rather than scrutinising some of the other "finishing touches"...

[JJW]

Tall tales but true (you be the judge)

A certain group A sierra at bathurst that had an on-board fire extinguisher nozzle pointed at the intercooler.

Another bathurst sierra which secured pole (oh, that narrows it a bit) with a 'malfunctioning' wastegate (possibly had 1000hp - no way of knowing as the engine builder's dyno didn't have numbers that big!)

no names no packdrill...

[E1pix]

I raced against many cheaters for many years. They'd justify it with "everyone cheats." No, they don't, and cheaters suck. Weak way to race, weaker still to win knowing it.

The reward was beating them while being legal. Apologies for the sanctimony, but cheaters are cowards.

Edited by E1pix, 04 October 2011 - 05:06.

[packapoo]

Has Flavio dropped in yet? (Can't be bothered scrolling thru).

[E1pix]

Wouldn't he lie if he was here?

[cheapracer]

The reward was beating them while being legal. Apologies for the sanctimony, but cheaters are cowards.

Well having done a bit of this and that for factory teams and seeing/working on ex factory vehicles and bikes first hand I might say then that the cowardice comes from the top down.

[cheapracer]

use of compressed air to bloat the fuel tank to increase capacity,

or to inflate an internal bag for when it's capacity was checked.

[E1pix]

Well having done a bit of this and that for factory teams and seeing/working on ex factory vehicles and bikes first hand I might say then that the cowardice comes from the top down.

Of that I am sure. Flavio as one.