How to do it
Ryan McGee / FOXSports.com
Posted: 8 hours ago
So you want to cheat in NASCAR do you?
You want to risk living the life that Michael Waltrip has endured over the last week, all for the chance at a little racing glory?
Then you, my friend, are not alone. Pushing the edge of the envelope is a NASCAR tradition as storied and as common as the victory lap or gratuitous sponsor mentions. Within the garage, great mechanics are looked upon with the same awe and respect as the most legendary drivers, and the greatest mechanics are the brave souls who have dared to live within the dark corners of the stock car racing rulebook.
Each and every weekend Nextel Cup race cars are run through the gauntlet of NASCAR technical inspection before every practice session, qualifying session, and race. It is an amazing Cold War-type of dance done between teams and their equally intelligent counterparts, all within the confines of a tiny cinder block room straight out of "Saw III."
So you still think you want a piece of that action?
Then follow along with our five-step plan to becoming a racing rule-bender. But we better not see any of you out there trying this stuff on your family minivan.
1. Gray's Anatomy
Before you get your cheat on, you have to get your read on. The NASCAR Nextel Cup rulebook is surprisingly small, about the size of a checkbook. That may not seem like enough type to cover every square inch of a 3,400-pound race car, but it is also surprisingly thorough, from the gauge of steel that must be used to build the roll cage to the type of equipment allowed in the pits.
"However," announces legendary driver and mechanic Junior Johnson, "there's still a lot of gray area in the middle of all that black and white. Whenever I had any idle time, I was reading that rulebook over and over again. I knew it better than the guys who wrote it. If you want a fast racecar you don't waste your time on the stuff they're worried about, you go looking where they aren't."
2. Horse Around With Horsepower
The first place that most NASCAR mechanics go looking for speed is where that speed is produced — within the engine. Modern inspection methods have all but done away with the best tricks of the 1960s and '70s, which ranged from cramming as big an engine as possible into the tiny space allowed to constructing engine parts from wax so they would melt during the race and increase the amount to room to create power. Then, of course, there was mounting a big bottle of nitrous oxide beneath the driver's seat so that he could pop a burst power into the motor whenever needed with the push of a button.
These days moves are more subtle. Fuel additives are still the preferred route, but you'd never get an old nitro canister through tech. Instead, you'll need to be creative as to where your extra combustion comes from — which is exactly what led to the mysterious glob of gelatinous goo that found its way into the fuel line of Michael Waltrip's Toyota Camry. Some say it was jet fuel, but others believe it to be something far simpler, perhaps even an over-the-counter cosmetic product such as tanning oil or skin bronzer.
Whatever it was, at some point someone on the team had to put in some homework. That means one long night behind the shop with a carton full of test substances and an ignition device.
Sounds like a great way to lose a limb, but hey, it might win the race, right?
3. Rock Your Body
Horsepower is great, but nothing makes NASCAR angrier faster than fiddling with fuel additives. Just ask Mr. Waltrip. So where else can a cheater turn?
"A lot of people spend all their time in the engine and all that," says Johnson. "But I always felt like there was a lot more you could do with the body of the car, especially at the superspeedways."
The idea is simple. A lower, slicker car slips through the air faster. Any body panel that can be massaged into a more aero-friendly shape or any device that lowers the car closer to the ground, even by the smallest fraction of an inch, can be worth precious fewer ticks on the stopwatch.
NASCAR has long chased team body modifications by adding an endless series of aluminum template frames that are laid down across the car body to check the fit. They also require minimum ground clearance and minimum roof heights. Still, they can't cover it all, and who's to say that couldn't put some sort of mini hydraulic system inside the car's chassis to lower and raise it when you need to? Trust us, folks, you wouldn't be the first or the last.
4. Lighten Up, Dude
NASCAR requires that cars meet a minimum weight during the inspection process, which is where we came up with that 3,400-pound figure during Step 1. It can weigh as much over that as you want, but ignoring weight is to ignore elementary physics. Light is fast, heavy is slow.
To roll a lighter, quicker car onto the track, you must figure out a way to shed that weight sometime after you get the green light in the inspection line. That means finding somewhere to hide some ballast for weigh-in time. In the past teams have fabricated or filled common parts with solid lead to meet minimum weight, then replaced them with the actual lighter item by race time, everything from fake radio components to helmets to tires. The trick is to make sure that missing weight finds its way back into the car by post-race inspection.
5. Action of Distraction
Finally, nothing draws eyes away from what you don't want them to see than something much more interesting elsewhere. Shouting to your Mom "Look at me!" while your buddy grabs the cookie jar and runs out the door. Same goes for tech inspection.
"Say you've got something real subtle you've done to the body of the car, like massaged the shape of the rear quarter panels," says Barry Dodson, NASCAR wrenchman for nearly four decades. "If you come through inspection with some totally tricked out illegal deal on the nose of the car, you'll have everybody and their brother over there looking at it and lecturing you on you should have never even tried it. Meanwhile, what you really wanted to get through never even gets looked at twice. When that works, you have to get out of there in a hurry because you know you might start smiling so big they'll know you're up to something."
Yeah, like winning a race.
Ryan McGee / FOXSports.com
Posted: 8 hours ago
So you want to cheat in NASCAR do you?
You want to risk living the life that Michael Waltrip has endured over the last week, all for the chance at a little racing glory?
Then you, my friend, are not alone. Pushing the edge of the envelope is a NASCAR tradition as storied and as common as the victory lap or gratuitous sponsor mentions. Within the garage, great mechanics are looked upon with the same awe and respect as the most legendary drivers, and the greatest mechanics are the brave souls who have dared to live within the dark corners of the stock car racing rulebook.
Each and every weekend Nextel Cup race cars are run through the gauntlet of NASCAR technical inspection before every practice session, qualifying session, and race. It is an amazing Cold War-type of dance done between teams and their equally intelligent counterparts, all within the confines of a tiny cinder block room straight out of "Saw III."
So you still think you want a piece of that action?
Then follow along with our five-step plan to becoming a racing rule-bender. But we better not see any of you out there trying this stuff on your family minivan.
1. Gray's Anatomy
Before you get your cheat on, you have to get your read on. The NASCAR Nextel Cup rulebook is surprisingly small, about the size of a checkbook. That may not seem like enough type to cover every square inch of a 3,400-pound race car, but it is also surprisingly thorough, from the gauge of steel that must be used to build the roll cage to the type of equipment allowed in the pits.
"However," announces legendary driver and mechanic Junior Johnson, "there's still a lot of gray area in the middle of all that black and white. Whenever I had any idle time, I was reading that rulebook over and over again. I knew it better than the guys who wrote it. If you want a fast racecar you don't waste your time on the stuff they're worried about, you go looking where they aren't."
2. Horse Around With Horsepower
The first place that most NASCAR mechanics go looking for speed is where that speed is produced — within the engine. Modern inspection methods have all but done away with the best tricks of the 1960s and '70s, which ranged from cramming as big an engine as possible into the tiny space allowed to constructing engine parts from wax so they would melt during the race and increase the amount to room to create power. Then, of course, there was mounting a big bottle of nitrous oxide beneath the driver's seat so that he could pop a burst power into the motor whenever needed with the push of a button.
These days moves are more subtle. Fuel additives are still the preferred route, but you'd never get an old nitro canister through tech. Instead, you'll need to be creative as to where your extra combustion comes from — which is exactly what led to the mysterious glob of gelatinous goo that found its way into the fuel line of Michael Waltrip's Toyota Camry. Some say it was jet fuel, but others believe it to be something far simpler, perhaps even an over-the-counter cosmetic product such as tanning oil or skin bronzer.
Whatever it was, at some point someone on the team had to put in some homework. That means one long night behind the shop with a carton full of test substances and an ignition device.
Sounds like a great way to lose a limb, but hey, it might win the race, right?
3. Rock Your Body
Horsepower is great, but nothing makes NASCAR angrier faster than fiddling with fuel additives. Just ask Mr. Waltrip. So where else can a cheater turn?
"A lot of people spend all their time in the engine and all that," says Johnson. "But I always felt like there was a lot more you could do with the body of the car, especially at the superspeedways."
The idea is simple. A lower, slicker car slips through the air faster. Any body panel that can be massaged into a more aero-friendly shape or any device that lowers the car closer to the ground, even by the smallest fraction of an inch, can be worth precious fewer ticks on the stopwatch.
NASCAR has long chased team body modifications by adding an endless series of aluminum template frames that are laid down across the car body to check the fit. They also require minimum ground clearance and minimum roof heights. Still, they can't cover it all, and who's to say that couldn't put some sort of mini hydraulic system inside the car's chassis to lower and raise it when you need to? Trust us, folks, you wouldn't be the first or the last.
4. Lighten Up, Dude
NASCAR requires that cars meet a minimum weight during the inspection process, which is where we came up with that 3,400-pound figure during Step 1. It can weigh as much over that as you want, but ignoring weight is to ignore elementary physics. Light is fast, heavy is slow.
To roll a lighter, quicker car onto the track, you must figure out a way to shed that weight sometime after you get the green light in the inspection line. That means finding somewhere to hide some ballast for weigh-in time. In the past teams have fabricated or filled common parts with solid lead to meet minimum weight, then replaced them with the actual lighter item by race time, everything from fake radio components to helmets to tires. The trick is to make sure that missing weight finds its way back into the car by post-race inspection.
5. Action of Distraction
Finally, nothing draws eyes away from what you don't want them to see than something much more interesting elsewhere. Shouting to your Mom "Look at me!" while your buddy grabs the cookie jar and runs out the door. Same goes for tech inspection.
"Say you've got something real subtle you've done to the body of the car, like massaged the shape of the rear quarter panels," says Barry Dodson, NASCAR wrenchman for nearly four decades. "If you come through inspection with some totally tricked out illegal deal on the nose of the car, you'll have everybody and their brother over there looking at it and lecturing you on you should have never even tried it. Meanwhile, what you really wanted to get through never even gets looked at twice. When that works, you have to get out of there in a hurry because you know you might start smiling so big they'll know you're up to something."
Yeah, like winning a race.
