[wiredfool]

There was the 3" fuel line issue a decade or more ago.

When limiting the size of the fuel cell to x gallons, they neglected to specify the size of the fuel line. More fuel capacity is an advantage late in the race, allowing for the potential to not have to pit for a splash of gas or have to drive as conservatively.

Well, a 3" line has a couple of gallon capacity if it extends the length of the car, and at one point, someone won because of it, and then had it discovered in the technical inspection.

[arwineap]

You're thinking of Smokey Yunick, and that's just a taste of his antics

Check out the "reverse torque special" where he reversed the direction of his engine, so the tq pull would naturally turn him in the correct direction for nascar

Or when he modified the roof and raised the floor to get a more aerodynamic car

Or when he qualified with wheel covers, and cut them out before the race ( rules didn't stipulate you had to cut them before qualifying )

The guy was a legend, and I think racing would be much more interesting if we had more of him

[sokoloff]

Or placed an inflated basketball in the fuel tank when it was going to be measured for capacity, only to deflate the basketball for the race.

Or load the car with cold (more dense) fuel.

Or (allegedly) race a 15/16ths scale car with a matching 15/16ths scale street car strategically parked in the track parking lot so the scrutineers could compare against a stock car and see that it matched.

Or built a race engine with the correct size cylinder in the easiest to measure location and oversized cylinders in every other position.

Other racers had special lead-filled radios and overweight helmets that would be in the car for tech, then get changed out before qualifying. Or lead shot filled in the frame rails and a wax seal or threaded fitting to keep it in. Darrell Waltrip tells a hilarious story where the threaded seal was in the jack point and NASCAR jacked the car to go look for it. Moving bars of Mallory (tungsten, basically) from the right to left after passing tech. Another racer was caught with a 22 gallon tank (20 was the limit at the time), apologized and agreed to change it. (He changed it to a 28 gallon tank.)

[Infernal]

> Or load the car with cold (more dense) fuel.

This is why F1 specifies fuel capacities and flow rates in kilograms.

[mindcrime]

Definitely a Smokey Yunick special there. That whole idea is so iconic / infamous in racing that it's directly referenced in the movie Days of Thunder in a scene where Harry Hogge is talking to the car he's started building and says something like "I'm going to give you a fuel line that will hold an extra gallon of fuel".

They didn't mention Smokey by name, but it was clearly an allusion to that.