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Beyond The Redline: The Difference Between Innovation And Cheating

By Rob Krider December 20, 2019

Well guys I have also been responsible for annual rule changes, and if you don't know how to read the rule book over and over
carefully, then you are going to go through what you went through.Walking through any race paddock, you might hear this saying, “There are two types of people in racing — cheaters or losers.” The connotation is if you aren’t pushing the limits of the rules in some way, then you aren’t taking advantage of every opportunity for speed. And, if you aren’t looking for every possible avenue to find more speed, then when the checkered flag drops, you’re probably the loser.

The reality is, in racing, it is much more complicated than that. Utilizing just two categories — cheater or loser — is a broad and extremely harsh way of looking at the situation. In most cases, the folks who have won championships and changed the landscape of racing weren’t really cheaters; they were innovators. And sometimes, if I’m being completely transparent about racing, well, sometimes these people were completely cheating.

However, Smokey Yunick read that rule book more and more thoroughly than anyone I knew.
and by your words, you guys did not do as good a job.
Smokey Yunick was quite honest about his days of reading between the lines of a rulebook.

Smokey Yunick’s autobiography, The Best Damn Garage in Town, is a book I have read cover to cover — twice. The things he did to find a way around the rulebook were absolutely genius. When NASCAR limited the size of the fuel tank but didn’t mention anything about how long the fuel line could be, he created an 11-foot long, two-inch-diameter fuel line from the gas tank to the engine which could hold five gallons of fuel. This was not cheating; this was innovation.
Bending, But Not BreakingTaking a cue from successful racers and crew chiefs of the past, my team decided to read between the lines of the rulebooks as we chased our own racing wins. Over the years, we have been both innovators and accused of cheating. Our first foray into the gray area of the rules was the early years of the 24 Hours of LeMons.

The rules stated you could add a fuel cell. Great, we did just that. Except, when we added our fuel cell, we went ahead and left in our stock fuel tank (more fuel capacity, yay!). In fact, our fuel cell just gravity fed into the stock fuel tank. That meant our OEM fuel pump still worked, the fuel gauge on the dashboard still worked (it read “full” for a very, very long time), and we didn’t come in for gas for hours.

Maybe you jerks should have bought a stopwatch so you could tell how far in front you were, and refuel even with
empty cans if necessary..........and READ the book , and quit the BS between the lines crap.
A fuel cell in the trunk and a stock fuel tank under the back seat. The fuel cell gravity fed into the stock fuel filler line giving us lots of gas for a long endurance race.

When we did come in for gas, we filled the fuel cell and the stock gas tank at the same time, making for a quick fuel stop. Watching us fuel the car (into two separate locations: 1. stock fuel-filler door and 2. into the trunk) is when the sanctioning body realized they should probably update their rulebook. They did; for the next race, the rulebook read, “A fuel cell may be added, only if the stock fuel tank is removed.”

So, in the case of our race before the rule was added, we weren’t cheating, we were innovators. And it worked, as the sun set during that long race, we were in the lead.

You jerks needed to read the rule book better......and develop a less blatant attention-getting method of refueling.
Once the rules changed, we had to adapt. So, we installed a massive 32-gallon fuel cell and used multiple NASCAR gas cans to fill it.