One Size Doesn’t Fit All

pixonaut/Getty ImagesThe rules for the Kelly American Challenge, which ran from 1977 to 1989, based minimum weight on engine size. To determine engine size, a tech inspector measured the displacement of one cylinder and then multiplied it by the number of cylinders. Sounds cut and dried. What could go wrong? Well, in the engine bay of Tommy Riggins’ Chevy Malibu, one cylinder was especially easy to access, so it was used to measure engine size. But at Road Atlanta in 1983, a contrarian tech inspector chose to check a different cylinder and came up with a different displacement number. How? The cylinder that was usually tested was undersized, while the one on the other side of the V was correspondingly oversized. So even though the engine was legal, the car was too light since the minimum-weight calculation was based on the Mini-Me cylinder.

Plategate

<span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span><span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span>Toyota Team Europe came up with an insanely sneaky way to bypass the restrictor plate during the 1995 World Rally Championship season. The hose that connected the air intake to the turbocharger of the Celica GT-Four was fitted with a metal collar. Screwing it into place compressed elastic washers, thereby moving the restrictor plate 5 millimeters away from the turbo. This allowed air to pass around the plate rather than through it. Hello, 50 extra horsepower! But the real genius of the design was that the very act of taking the unit apart to inspect it released the tension on the springs and caused the restrictor plate to snap back into its original, legal position. The fiddle wasn’t discovered until Rally Catalunya, near the end of the season. The FIA stripped Toyota of all points in 1995 and excluded the team from the 1996 championship.

Smokey’s Bandit

<span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span><span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span>You know those wild stories told about the Chevelle that Smokey Yunick didn’t race in the Daytona 500 in 1968? That it was seven-eighths scale? That Yunick drove it back to the Best Damn Garage in Town after leaving the gas tank with mystified tech inspectors? Bogus, most of them, but it’s still the greatest cheater car in racing history. There was virtually no piece of that Chevelle that Yunick didn’t massage. The chassis was scratch-built, with a Watt’s linkage and faired-in suspension components. The engine was positioned on the centerline of the chassis, as required, but Yunick moved everything else to the left, including the driver. To optimize aerodynamics, he shaved the door handles, channeled the grille, and flattened the roof. Yunick insisted the car didn’t break any rules. But as he wrote in his memoir: “Was this car a ‘cheater,’ Smokey? You’re goddam rite [sic] it was.”