Grp C/Grp A – "Tricks of the Trade" (Merged)

[Clive Brown]

Originally Posted by StuiE

Not a GrpA/C one, but Bill Elliott's 7/8 scale Nascar is a legendary cheat.

Sorry , but it wasn't Bill Elliott , it was alleged to be Smokey Yunick's Chevrolet Chevelle from about twenty years earlier . Smokey was a legendary cheat , and proud of it ; in an interview he gave shortly before he died in 2001 , he was proud that according to his reckoning , about 3/4 of the then-NASCAR rule book had been introduced to rule out things he'd come up with . He also denied that the Chevelle was 7/8 scale , but did not deny that the car might have been illegal in other respects ! It was Yunick who put fuel in the roll cage , and used big-bore fuel lines to increase the window between green flag fuel stops . Interestingly , he claimed that the two things he would never do were to run an oversize motor or to use an oversize fuel cell ; he considered the perenniel battle 'twixt eligibility scrutineers and car builders to be a far nobler art than that .

If you want to see a blatantly illegal Stock Car , try and find some pictures of the infamous ' Yellow Banana ' , Junior Johnson's 1966 #26 Holly Farms Ford Galaxie which Fred Lorenzen drove . Now that , my friend , is what I call cheating !

There's a big difference between clever men ( Ralph Broad , for one ) constructively interpreting the rules , and the cynical and persistent blatant flouting of the regulations that has over a number of years characterised the cars of a certain prominent modern-day team owner , who has run cars on behalf of a number of manufacturers over the years , and no doubt has an extremely good team of Libel lawyers ready to spring into action at the slightest hint of their client's reputation being besmirched .

Unfortunately , though , the worst cheats of all in recent times have been the manufacturers themselves , submitting homologation papers in respect of cars which they know full well have not been produced in the requisite numbers , using factory body presses to run off non-structural panels in thinner-gauge sheet metal , and providing factory stamps and dies to allow the production of parts of standard appearance in better materials .

[dazza027]

Originally Posted by bdwoody

i may be wrong but i thought nitous oxide was an exelerator that needs a fuel to work, on it own it wont burn.

Otherwise known as a chemically blown motor, nitrous oxide is used simply to raise the oxygen content of the charge of gas going into the engine, which in turns allows the use of more fuel to be supplied to the motor and therefore make more power.
A common problem however is when young wannabe ricer racers go and plonk nos on their buzz buckets thinking they'll get there 150 shot gain in hp only to find that fitting just the nos alone and not doing anything to increase the fuel content while the switch is flicked usually results in burnt up pistons etc from leaning out their motor too far.

[PVDA]

Have a look at the footage of nearly any race start in the turbo Sierra era and you'll see a DJR crew member jump the wall as the car lines up for the actual start to squirt some liquid under the rear wheels of the cars. I always assumed it was water to assist in getting off the line without breaking the drive train but always wondered why they were allowed to do it (Shell sponsored team in Shellsponsored series perhaps).

[A9X05]

Originally Posted by racer69

Don't know if this is the one you mean, but;

Brock got disqualified from the 1978 ATCC round at Sandown for running an illegally modified anti-sway bar (they'd drilled for fitment purposes, but it was outside the tolerances allowed)

It was abit of a murky ruling though. The HDT cars had run them in that configuration since 1976 according to the June 1978 edition of RCN, and John Sheppard had been trying to get a ruling on the matter since the beginning of 1978 when he took over the team, John Keefe had even inspected the cars personally and told them "we'll let you know".. meaning the cars ran meetings in the 'illegal' spec until the ruling was made post-Sandown.

Brock and the HDT copped a 4 week suspension for it.

Incidently Moffat was also disqualified from the same event, for running his cars with those infamous roller rockers (he copped a 6 week suspension)

Yeah I wil do some more digging here at home! Your story does sound familar though! Also, after reading your post R69 ,I relised I got my years wrong! Of course HF left at the end of 1977 When JS took over in 1978! I apologise for being human!

[dazza027]

Originally Posted by PVDA

Have a look at the footage of nearly any race start in the turbo Sierra era and you'll see a DJR crew member jump the wall as the car lines up for the actual start to squirt some liquid under the rear wheels of the cars. I always assumed it was water to assist in getting off the line without breaking the drive train but always wondered why they were allowed to do it (Shell sponsored team in Shellsponsored series perhaps).

...or maybe VHT traction compound....

[chavez]

Originally Posted by jezz

yes he did, only amscar series though as pointed out by racer69, the 3rd round on the 23rd may 82,

good point though, just had a look back through my race yearbooks and couldn't find both moffat and brock racing at Amaroo. Might have been at Oran but i will ask my dad tomorrow and see if he remembers what circuit it was.

thanks Jezz, I stand corrected.

[jezz]

don't apologize mate, you corrected me in a way too, anyway i spoke to my dad and he was adamant it was at amaroo so either dad's memory is shot or it was in a different catagory but using the same cars (me thinks it is the memory problem)
At a guess it could have been ant any of the east coat tracks as dad did travel a bit to race so anywhere from surfers and lakeside down to calder park. Who knows but with the amount of stories going around about this one it has got enough merit.

[Henry]

The tin-top push have been deviously ingenious throughout the history of the sport: Norm Beechey's Monaro was an appropriate engineering response to the artistry of the Moffat Trans-Am Mustang... Ford's attempt at building Trnas-Am style Falcons via extensive acid-dipping and lightweight panels... the defacto dry-sumping concocted to keep the early Group C cars alive... the ahem, liberal factory tolerances nominated on the Ford Tudor coupes, which allowed Henry's Heroes to tub their cars using factory parts... the sort of scrute trickery indulged in by works teams with a pet privateer for comparisons (the story about The Rascal dropping Murray Carter a new set of pistons barely ahead of a pack of scrutineers made me chuckle)... the extra holes drilled here and there to allow massive suspension geometry changes... the holes drilled in KB's Channel 9 Chev, and his special aluminium bolts - which all added up to the car throwing metal like an old chook shedding feathers every time it got a tap...

Or how, once Group A came along, about the team with a pendulum-actuated brake-proportioning system which used the car's own intertia in simulating an anti-lock braking system...

And then there was the R32 GTR Skyline... pity that the scrutes basically just had to take Freddo's word for it..."oh pleeease don't throw me in the briar patch, Brer Scrute!")...

the 1994 Bathurst #05 car was lucky it got to run IIRC... Grech trying to get the front top suspension mounts relocated due to them coinciding with roll cage pickup points, and therefore "free"...

[KA]

Originally Posted by stoned pony

Harry Firth tells of the aluminium body parts made for a Le Mans Torana that never made it. Thing is that a few sets of panels went through the presses at Fisherman's Bend and they made it onto some race cars. Harry was quick to point-out that none of them went on the factory cars of course!

Think I've read somewhere (track test & article in one of the UK classic car mags a few years back) that when TWR were building the Group A XJS, some lighter gauge sheet metal just happened to find it's way into the presses at Jaguar....

[Thunder1]

Originally Posted by Clive Brown

Sorry , but it wasn't Bill Elliott , it was alleged to be Smokey Yunick's Chevrolet Chevelle from about twenty years earlier . Smokey was a legendary cheat , and proud of it ; in an interview he gave shortly before he died in 2001 , he was proud that according to his reckoning , about 3/4 of the then-NASCAR rule book had been introduced to rule out things he'd come up with . He also denied that the Chevelle was 7/8 scale , but did not deny that the car might have been illegal in other respects ! It was Yunick who put fuel in the roll cage , and used big-bore fuel lines to increase the window between green flag fuel stops . Interestingly , he claimed that the two things he would never do were to run an oversize motor or to use an oversize fuel cell ; he considered the perenniel battle 'twixt eligibility scrutineers and car builders to be a far nobler art than that .

If you want to see a blatantly illegal Stock Car , try and find some pictures of the infamous ' Yellow Banana ' , Junior Johnson's 1966 #26 Holly Farms Ford Galaxie which Fred Lorenzen drove . Now that , my friend , is what I call cheating !

There's a big difference between clever men ( Ralph Broad , for one ) constructively interpreting the rules , and the cynical and persistent blatant flouting of the regulations that has over a number of years characterised the cars of a certain prominent modern-day team owner , who has run cars on behalf of a number of manufacturers over the years , and no doubt has an extremely good team of Libel lawyers ready to spring into action at the slightest hint of their client's reputation being besmirched .

Unfortunately , though , the worst cheats of all in recent times have been the manufacturers themselves , submitting homologation papers in respect of cars which they know full well have not been produced in the requisite numbers , using factory body presses to run off non-structural panels in thinner-gauge sheet metal , and providing factory stamps and dies to allow the production of parts of standard appearance in better materials .

The Yellow Banana story link below

http://www.fredlorenzen.com/banana.htm

Enjoy
Thunder

[anthony81901]

Recall that during the early 80's, a team supposedly conducted a test session one night at Bathurst airport, guess it was wasn't that hard to smuggle a car out of the circuit when most were transported behind a panel van on a trailer, a far cry from today's monstrous pantechs, just ask Team Dynamik.

That was one of the beauties of Group C being a less professional business, there was more room for ingenuity, for mine the current circus takes itself too seriously, but then isn’t that the case with most things in life.

[Henry]

Originally Posted by anthony81901

Recall that during the early 80's, a team supposedly conducted a test session one night at Bathurst airport, guess it was wasn't that hard to smuggle a car out of the circuit when most were transported behind a panel van on a trailer, a far cry from today's monstrous pantechs, just ask Team Dynamik..

That sounds like the tale of a folk hero, a "rock star" if you will, who had a trying Bathurst week once, in his large blue car... he had virtually lunched a motor by the end of Friday qualifying, and the spare wasn't up to much, so he set about pulling it down, to find the bores all glazed and the rings like Schick Ultras... apparently, one of the NSW constabulary's finest wandered into the annexe, just as said folk hero was torquing up the heads and said to our man; "Is that your good engine?

"Well" replied our laconic legend, "it would be if we had somewhere to run it in". The rest of the story revolves around a stretch of the Blayney road which was apparently blocked at either end in the wee small hours, and a blue streak, which apparently rocketed past some poor woman in her 929, waiting patiently at the lollypop man at one end...

Didn't do our hero much good that year...

[David Towe]

I heard recently that when some teams had to add lead weights to the car and were told they had to be visible from outside the car, the team would fit a fibreglass weight in a spot that satisfied the scrutineers, then fit the actual weight anywhere they wanted to help the balance of the car. The car would come up to weight and the scrutineers never checked to see that the weight they could see was actually weight.
what sort of devious mind comes up with stuff like we've read here?

[jezz]

a person who is worth his pay packet!!!

[Crash Test]

Originally Posted by PVDA

Have a look at the footage of nearly any race start in the turbo Sierra era and you'll see a DJR crew member jump the wall as the car lines up for the actual start to squirt some liquid under the rear wheels of the cars. I always assumed it was water to assist in getting off the line without breaking the drive train but always wondered why they were allowed to do it (Shell sponsored team in Shellsponsored series perhaps).

In a similar vein in more recent times, I remember a story about when a V8 Supercar was sold on to another team. First job was to strip and clean it, and while scraping out the wheel arches of rubber, one bit on each rear tyre wouldn't budge. They turned out to be nozzles connected to a squirter bottle... hrmmmm....

[roverboy]

I know one Sydney based privateer who, when debuting his Group A Mustang was quietly ushered into the tent of the leading Ford team. The curtains were drawn and said privateer was handed a tape measure and note pad and told very sternly - "Look here sonny, this car of yours had better be the same as ours next time we see it!"

[PhaseIII]

IIRC - Weren't the 'Cologne' Capri's required to retain the original leaf spring rear suspension, but were allowed to have 'auxiliary' springs?
So 'Coil Over' Dampers were added & the Leaf Springs replaced with PLASTIC ones!!!

[david5]

Originally Posted by PhaseIII

IIRC - Weren't the 'Cologne' Capri's required to retain the original leaf spring rear suspension, but were allowed to have 'auxiliary' springs?
So 'Coil Over' Dampers were added & the Leaf Springs replaced with PLASTIC ones!!!

IIRC they were homologated that way.

David

[Jeff 8]

A friend has a bonnet from a certain green Falcon that crashed at Bathurst and not only is it extremely light compared to a standard XD bonnet, it has never rusted even though he lives very close to the sea where every piece of bare metal rusts.

He also tells the story of a privateer arriving at scrutineering to be told by some works team people to take his car away and make it lighter as it was making their cars look wrong.

Jeff

[David Towe]

Originally Posted by Jeff 8

A friend has a bonnet from a certain green Falcon that crashed at Bathurst and not only is it extremely light compared to a standard XD bonnet, it has never rusted even though he lives very close to the sea where every piece of bare metal rusts.
Jeff

I presume it's no good trying to stick a magnet to it?

[Jeff 8]

Originally Posted by David Towe

I presume it's no good trying to stick a magnet to it?

It doesn't look aluminium, is titanium magnetic?

Jeff

[Rob Bailey]

Originally Posted by Jeff 8

It doesn't look aluminium, is titanium magnetic?

Jeff

years ago VHT from memory had a paint that had metal through it?
handy for alloy blocks!

[kramer]

Originally Posted by Henry

That sounds like the tale of a folk hero, a "rock star" if you will, who had a trying Bathurst week once, in his large blue car... he had virtually lunched a motor by the end of Friday qualifying, and the spare wasn't up to much, so he set about pulling it down, to find the bores all glazed and the rings like Schick Ultras... apparently, one of the NSW constabulary's finest wandered into the annexe, just as said folk hero was torquing up the heads and said to our man; "Is that your good engine?

"Well" replied our laconic legend, "it would be if we had somewhere to run it in". The rest of the story revolves around a stretch of the Blayney road which was apparently blocked at either end in the wee small hours, and a blue streak, which apparently rocketed past some poor woman in her 929, waiting patiently at the lollypop man at one end...

Didn't do our hero much good that year...

Well, when you're a car dealer running a team - you often have access to Trade Plates. Plenty of cars with numbers on the doors and names on the sides had Trade Plates on Saturday night.

I once helped run in a Bathurst engine in a road-registered car. By geez that thing got me to Mittagong and back fast!




Kramer

[Gaz170]

Originally Posted by PVDA

Have a look at the footage of nearly any race start in the turbo Sierra era and you'll see a DJR crew member jump the wall as the car lines up for the actual start to squirt some liquid under the rear wheels of the cars. I always assumed it was water to assist in getting off the line without breaking the drive train but always wondered why they were allowed to do it (Shell sponsored team in Shellsponsored series perhaps).

Dick once poured the contents of a Solo drink can over the rear tyres of his Mustang before the start of a race. He later said in print it was to help break traction as the thing had so much grunt it would bog down at the start.

That's what he said anyway, it must be true ........

[Henry]

Originally Posted by kramer

Well, when you're a car dealer running a team - you often have access to Trade Plates. Plenty of cars with numbers on the doors and names on the sides had Trade Plates on Saturday night.

I once helped run in a Bathurst engine in a road-registered car. By geez that thing got me to Mittagong and back fast!




Kramer

The Stuyvesant team had a little chocolate brown RX3 IIRC, which used to spend a bit of time having its entrails transplanted into race cars, didn't it?