Besides being Born next to my home town, I truly believe he was the MASTER of "racing in the gray" or finding loopholes in the rules that gave the cars he worked on a significant advantage..
Founder of "It didn't say you couldn't" foundation
"If it's not in the rulebook, it's not cheating"
Owner of "The best damn garage in town"
In the 60's NASCAR invented Soft walls to save drivers and air jacks to save jackmen Neither was implemented byNASCAR until Dale Earnhart died when safe walls were implemented.
some stories that I thought would be interesting.
Invented an inflatable bladder which could be placed in the fuel tank to pass maximum fuel capacity rules. after which nascar changed their rules
Built a 100% accurate 7/8 scale replica of their Chevelle race car and won, after which nascar mandated templates.
That car was the inspiration for Ricky Bobby's car in Taladega Nights.
This One was the race car, but the really clever bit was the other he built as a standard car and parked in the car park. When challenged by the officials, he said lets check it against a stock one in the car park....... of course they were the same size. (this story has not been confirmed)
Having just had his car taken apart during scrutineering - which included the full removal of the fuel tank - was informed that his car was illegal on 20 counts. With the fuel tank still on the ground Smokey then jumped into it, fired it up, drove away and yelled:
"You'd better make that 21!"
He would regularly rig up fairly harmless illegal modifications going through tech and when the scruitineer would find it, feeling good about "catching" him he'd get a "fix it before the race" slap on the wrist. which purely acted as a diversion for the REALLY sneaky stuff going on.
He would often make sure to get to inspection in the last allowable minuites, when the inspectors were ready to call it a day.