The Cheating Penske Camaro
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- čas přidán 15. 05. 2018
- Rule bending or blatant cheating? Tell us what you think in the comments, and let us know what we should cover next!
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Credits:
"Mark Donohue JPGP S 75" used under CC BY-SA 2.0 by Car Throttle and has been altered. License creativecommons.org/licenses/...
"Dan Luginbuhl 1" by Coxtka, used under CC BY-SA 4.0 by Car Throttle and has been altered. License creativecommons.org/licenses/...
"Camaro & spider sculpture at Barber 2010" by Legends Of Motorsports, used under CC BY-SA 2.0 by Car Throttle and has been altered. License creativecommons.org/licenses/...
"1967 Chevrolet Camaro Z-28 (Sunoco)" by Nathan Bitinger, used under CC BY 2.0 by Car Throttle and has been altered. License creativecommons.org/licenses/...
"Camaro at Barber 2010" by Legends Of Motorsports, used under CC BY-SA 2.0 by Car Throttle and has been altered. License creativecommons.org/licenses/...
"Trans-Am-01" by Nathan Bittinger, used under CC BY 2.0 by Car Throttle and has been altered. License creativecommons.org/licenses/... - Auta a dopravní prostředky
how about ingenious, but blatant cheating?
I concur.
Yes. Ingenious cheating.
Exactly.
Rafael Dos Santos is
Let's not forget to add Blackmail to the list
blatant cheating, but still clever
Jake Pie some F1 teams are very clever too.
Acid dipping was clever but swapping the number was pretty dumb, but I guess dumb can work if regulations are lax enough to get away with it.
let them be inovative but put drivers safety in priority
its cheating when u are caught
Um im starting to think everyone cheated the rules at some point or another.
hanable moore my grandfather used to tell me "There are two types of racers, cheaters and losers."
Brien Berglund are rule benders cheaters? Im not refering to these guys. They cheated. But in general. Are rule benders cheating?
hanable moore most of the I'd say no. Exploiting a loophole to gain a competitive advantage is merely just that, however many opposing teams would most likely disagree.
Yeah, right up until they start doing it, too and it becomes common practice.
In the 70s nascar drivers were caught using nitrous.
Rule bending and cheating are the same thing but I do respect the creativeness of it
Adam Davies not really. Rule bending has you coming inside the rules but in a clever way. This is flat out breaking the rules and hiding the evidence. 2 completely different things.
Rule bending isn't cheating as no rules have been broken.
xHarux3 but they rule bend knowing it will get band when court so in my eyes they are nearly the same only difference is one it's official band and the other hasn't been put in writing as the person making the rules didn't think they had to
Same
@@adamdavies1249 so you are saying every innovation in motorsport in the last hundred years were cheats, because every one was brought in because the rules didn't say they couldn't.
This is what I love about this era of racing is how "sheisty" and sly the teams were when it came to getting an edge.
Grant Hendricks remember when Lancia would pull this shit all the time?
Its only cheating if you get caught!
Well they got caught but just threw a hissy fit and got away with it
maxxjett films.... They got caught lol
Yea i dont think your wife or husband would agree with that statement. Lol
Bullshit. It's cheating regardless of whether or not you get away with it.
OffRoadRN they're born cheaters whom the natural slection will endenger, if only they'd cheat they'd be able to dodge
Kind of smart but it's definitely cheating. No doubt
When you're cheating, don't win by too much. LOL.
He who by a lap
okrajoe 0:19 it says that he won by a full lap, ya I guess an ENTIRE LAP isn’t really ‘way to much’ if you’rea butt-hurt ford owner,
Crazy that 250lbs made such a big difference....
*starts viciously ripping parts of my car*
Loose the seats and glass (except windscreen) that stuff is heavy, put in a light weight racing seat.
The biggest effect 250 LBS has is on the brakes..................
m d, The nasty 302 didn’t hurt anything either. 😎👍🏻
@@flashgordon3715
If you have rubber weatherstripping for the other windows , it's sorta heavy but you can glue lexan in there like the original window.
Lose the rubber for more weight , but you would lose a sleeper image.
Depends on what you're up to, but either way it's saving some weight.
I think it works out to 100 pounds is 1 tenth of a second per lap
That is one of the best rule bending stories I’ve ever heard and like some others have said, “It’s only cheating if you get caught.”
Right up there with Smokey Yunick’s 7/8 sized NASCAR racer. Gotta love this creativity!
The funny thing about it though That Chevy wasn't officially in racing at the time all the chevy teams were privateer teams. They were given parts and support through the back door at GM.
First off, the 1967 Camaro was shown with a 1968 grille. Mark's number later in '68 and '69 was "6". Also, in '68; they experimented with dry ice in the fuel- allowed an extra gallon of fuel in the tank!
The more you know...
The only way Camaros can win races: cheating aggressively.
@yesca jasta I have had no problems with my Mustang's suspension in the 12 years I've driven it. It handles and rides quite well and is a joy to take on a long road trip. 145,000 miles and counting, so I don't know what you are talking about. I've driven Camaros. I don't like how the ride or handle. Not nearly as much fun as the Mustang...
Chrysler was doing acid dipped body panels in 65-65 in the first Hemi cars, I think everyone probably did at one time or another.
Richard Petty used to put his bodies outside in winter (bare metal), spray them with salt, then sand the rust off to lighten them
darrel waltrip told a story of ( i think it was jr johnston) that filled a set of tires with water like a farm tractor..ran it thru inspection then swapped out the tires and wheels ...it was discovered when one day the car was driven up for inspection and pinched a sidewall on a ramp edge...the resulting stream of water gave it away
darrel waltrip told a story of ( i think it was jr johnston) that filled a set of tires with water like a farm tractor..ran it thru inspection then swapped out the tires and wheels ...it was discovered when one day the car was driven up for inspection and pinched a sidewall on a ramp edge...the resulting stream of water gave it away
if i was a rival to this guy i wouldnt be as mad as im impressed by the creativeness
also mildly concerned about the fact that he drives a car made out of tissue paper.
Roger and Mark..The Dynamic Duo!!🏆🏁😎
Never before or after
Best of all time
Ingenious rule bending ! That's why rule book's are updated all every year !
It’s definitely both 🤣😂 I love hearing these campfire stories of old school racing. Those guys were badass.
Rule bending. There was no rule say you couldn't dip the cars in acid.
But Changing the numbers is a grey area
This has been done with horses. Set the odds with the slow one...
Cheating both years, 67 he didn't meet weight which was in the rules, 68 acid dipping was made against the rules, so he doubled down and made the car super weak by dipping it more, and was further under weight. Bending the rules is things like my car is required to have leaf springs under the back so u hung leaves under it but had it riding on coils, because the rules didn't specify the car had to ride on the leaf suspension just that it had to be there.
I JUST read that part in Mark Donohue's book " the unfair advantage ." Highly recommend book for vintage racing enthusiasts! Its only cheating if you get caught, and if its against the rules . Race in peace Mark .
Cheating, rule bending doesn't require you to sneak around. Still pretty clever.
Shelby S Air Bud Rule: if it doesnt state directly in the rules you can't do something; its perfectly legal and nothing can be done about it
nhyijy there was a weight requirement that the car didn't meet. So there may not have been a rule saying not to acid dip, there was a rule preventing anyone from acid dipping to the extent that this was carried out. Any time there are specifics about your build that are in place and you change something that makes your build not meet said requirements, running it is a clear case of cheating.
If you bend rules you'd best sneak around about it so that you don't run the risk of being asked to stop, of course of you get caught bending the rules all you have to say is, "show me where it says I can't do that" and you're golden until an amendment is made to stop people from doing it.
Sensible Name Change iirc they added the weight back for the '68 year to the minimum but didn't want them to know it was a '67 car with just the fascia of a '68
Look into Smokey Yunick when it comes to "creativity" with the rules.
GreenJeep1998
Smokey was infamous for his, er, _winning strategies._
But really Smokey cheated within the rules, though not within the intent of the rules
When the rules called for a 15 gal. gas tank......Smokey added fuel lines that held as much as a 1/2 gallon more.....as no one had the rules where you can add as much fuel line as you wanted. He was the MAN when it came to enterpeting the rules.
He wanted NASCAR to allow built in pneumatic jacks, so he built a race car with them. The officials told him to cut them off so he did, took them back home and tossed them in a corner of his shop where they stayed until he died, or at least until the last interview and tour of his shop that he gave before he died, wherin he pointed them out.
@@owatajrkiam large parts of the racing rule books are reactions to creativity of race teams. Some of the content of the rule books have come from cheats so good they became mandatory.
I think I like this channel more than normal Car Throttle
Quote from the era- "It ain't cheating, it's called 'Tuning.'"
If they won 10/13 races and held the record for 29 years AND got away with it, then its pretty damn smart.
Both. This was some dastardly trickery... But there's still a part of me that loves the brilliance of it.
I wanted to say a big company would never cheat but look at the VW dieselgate. I think they cheated
Guten Tschüss big companies cheat all the time
Spencer Beck lol, exactly..
Other manufacturers do it, they just haven't been caught yet. FCA got caught too, right after VW.
Wrong. Diesels are so powerful and fuel efficient, the only way to avoid them is to make them out to be hyper-polluting. Modern diesels are more efficient than modern gas engines and less polluting. Can't force future generations into autonomous cars capable of being tracked at all times when there is a fuel efficient more powerful alternative. VW didnt cheat. The fix was in. Question everything you see.
bigblocklawyer yup i wanted to say the exact same thing but you said it perfectly. The gas cars will be doing some cheating if the Obama 2022-2025 EPA regulations are kept in place. Under the new regs. all cars and light trucks are required to get 50 MPG on average that is part of the reason i think they are trying to phase out V8 in trucks and suvs and going with Turbo 4's and 6's dont get me wrong i like turbos but give me a Turbo v8 in a light truck or a real Turbo Diesel made for power
A famous Smokey Yunick technique
This type of thing was (and is still) common practice. It was only after a collector who purchased one of Bud Moore's Trans Am mustangs did they discover during restoration that original sized body panels did not fit. The ENTIRE body shell was hand built and was less than full size.
If ya ain’t cheatin
Y’ain’t tryin
If ya get caught cheatin
Try harder
But yes ,according to this story , that was cheatin
Interesting fact - some members of the team later on became technical advisors to Toyota Team Europe WRC program ! hahaha
Ingenious! If you are going to inspect the car then you are on the hook to make sure the inspection is able to make sure to catch the infractions.
Lightening cars by acid dipping them was started by the factory Mopar guys in drag racing in the early 60s. Between that, and the winged cars at Daytona, they were bending and breaking rules all over the place. It was all part of the racing game back then, done by everyone. Creative stuff.
I remember when Smokey Yunick built a 9/10 scale '66 Chevelle for NASCAR
Jim E think they said that was not true. But rather he lowered the hood and windows and repositioned the body for better weigh distribution.
that was 40 years ago. I remember seeing the profile template fitting the windshield
Smokey;s Chevelle was full size and mostly legal, it got it's speed from the underside of the car being flat and smooth giving it superior aerodynamics, NASCAR had no rule against it, they just never thought of it. His Camaro however was another story, it was dipped, chopped, sectioned and channeled, but by looking you couldn't tell. Needless to say SCCA never allowed it to race. Years later Vick Edelbrock bought the car for his daughter to road race and he had his shop restore it. Every day his men would come to him laughing, no replacement part they ever ordered would work. Both cars are alive and well, being in private hands. Like Smokey said, 'Hell I never cheated a day in my life, If it ain't in the damn rules how in the hell can it be cheating.
it wasnt 9/10 scale. Chevrolet had formaly pulled out of nascar at the time and they did not have templates for the chevelle when it was entered. What Smokey did was build the racecar with a massaged and chopped body but also built an identical street car version that he had someone else drive to the track. When he tried to enter it and run it through tech, NASCAR said they didnt have a template to which Smokey replied more or less "i've got a 67 chevelle out in the parking lot, make one of it" which they did. low and behold the racecar "passed" inspection.
I remember this episode well , people who saw the car Smokey built said you couldn’t tell which was smoother , the top of the car or underneath with cowls round the wheel wells painted and polished.
Back in the good ole days of NASCAR guys would put trap doors to drop lead weights out after weigh in and officials were wondering why there were so many lead pellets on the track; or one racer made a helmet out of lead and hung it in the car during weighing. Or some would make extra intake vents that would close when the hood pin cable was released and even had a painted silicone bead around the edge so when it closed it looked like a welded panel.
Vegaspsycho I forget who it was, but some NASCAR racer made a 7/8 scale Chevelle race car in the 60s
Smokey Yanick. Turning cheating and creative rule interpretation into an art form.
it wasn't really 7/8 scale but it was heavily modified, including making the frame rails into auxiliary fuel tanks.
www.dailysportscar.com/2016/01/24/the-infamous-and-incredible-1967-smokey-yunick-chevrolet-chevelle.html
macsmotorcitygarage.com/the-truth-about-smokey-yunicks-78-scale-chevelle/
Vegaspsycho I was just going by what I remember being said about it on the show Americarna. Thanks for that link.
Ingenious. It's one thing to try something that hasn't been written down as a rule. But if you know what your doing is breaking a rule then its straight forward cheating.
Smokey Yunick is the genius reason the rule book is so thick. He didn't "cheat" but if the rules didn't say you couldn't... he tried. ;)
The only way a camaro can win is by cheating.
True story
I remember my drill sergeant telling my platoon: "Privates! If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'!"
Worst kept secret in racing: if you’re not cheating, you’re not trying hard enough.
This is actually one big reason I don’t really want to get into “real” racing. I’d rather fight fair, and dealing with cheaters just sucks the fun out of it for me. So, I stick to track days, motorcycling, and flying. No cheating, lots of fun, lower stress hormones. 🤙
Yes to both !
I suppose that's a bit of a hedge here,
but without the advancements here, and others, were would still be where we were Forty years prior !
All part of racing.... happens with all types of motorsport. Even today in f1 and rally. Cant remember what team it was but they ran a turbocharger that had to have a inlet restrictor a certain size will say 30mm for example and the r,n,d got the task to bend the rules to get round this. So the came up with a inlet restricter that when cold would be 30mm and when hot would open up by 5mm to get more air in the compressor just giving the edge they needed. The rules said the inlet had to be 30mm but didn't say anything about expansions due to heat.
www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.carthrottle.com/post/wqm9665/&ved=2ahUKEwia-J6rw4zbAhWsAcAKHS9TBNkQFjAMegQIBRAB&usg=AOvVaw2pbgA-JO-HCZtMYV-DRfoU
Once again big business ruins a sports car series championship. So the Trans-Am series was a sham for GM.
Arnold Anderson you think bud moore was an angel with his fords think again
Shawn Gherity I agree with you there Shawn, they all had secrets to hide but to threaten to pull out of the series is really low for a manufacturer, even a series as important as the Trans- Am.
GM as a corporation wasn’t involved in racing in those days, period. They never called the shots to Penske Racing. Chevrolet R&D supplied services like testing with telemetry and, sometimes, got engineering to make changes in response to issues that racing brought to the surface. Penske allowed one engineer, Don Cox, to come around as a liaison between the team and Chevrolet R&D. But they did that at the risk of their career. GM brass was too boring to support anything that interesting.
I love the story about the guy in NASCAR that was really fast. He had areodynamicly smoothed the bottom of the car .nothing in the rules said anything about the underside!! That's awesome
NASCARS motto has always “if ya ain’t cheating ya ain’t tryin hard enough”
Sounds like the Patriots! hahaha
racing is "creative interpretation of the rule-book"
Its quite ingenious, and to me it just opens up a lot of possibilities for other teams as well
Reminds me of AFM racing at Sears Point about four decades ago. Production class rules required a functioning alternator during tech inspection. Nobody said anything about a kill switch in the field circuit... :)
That is actually really smart.
no it isnt - they got caught! they were not too bright!!
Smart and disgraceful
Sounds like how things works in Brazil.
I'm not even kidding here.
Working within the gray area of the rulebook. Trickery. And ingenious rule bending.
Mark Donahue wrote a book called “The unfair advantage “....he was an engineering student as well.”Rules interpretation “ is in all platforms of racing.
Maybe they could have won anyway, if they had spent the effort for cheating, in making a good car...
Actually, Donahue was an excellent chassis developer, he was always looking for "the unfair advantage". When he raced the Camaros he would beat the fords by getting bigger better tyres, spoilers, engine developing with Traco, basically getting factory effort from GM and being by being a great driver. It should also be noted that the reason they acid dipped in the first place was because Ford started doing it, though they took it to the extreme, being Penske.
Fun fact: They also tried acid dipping the engine block before it was machined with several intensities to see how it worked. To differentiate it from the regular engines being produced, they painted the blocks in distinct colors, this did not help much because they had to give up the project after the engines were installed in regular cars.
When they changed to the AMC Javelin, they had to spend the entire 1970 season trying to get it as good as the well developed Camaro, making AMC produce a Mark Donahue edition with spoilers and also going through 25 engines, because it had a tendency to blow up.
blatant cheating
I didn’t even know this channel existed! You need to plug it more on the main channel
Ingenious rule-bending or blatant cheating? Both! But that gen Camaro looks so cool, good for them.
cheeky buggers
Always no the rules well enough to know what they don't say
James Yeowell Exactly. If you are a racer and you are the cause of a new rule, then you’re doing it right.
James Yeowell when I was younger my family owned a race car and I can't remember what my dad did exactly but they tried to disqualify us for it, I think he bored out the cylinders or something like that.... Apparently they thought it was in the rules until my dad threw the book at them (literally) and said "I'll come back tomorrow, why dont you highlight what we did wrong" and my 10 year old self was in the corner like "oh shit, son!".... long story short we got the $5k and they had to rewrite the rule book.... then they disqualified us the next year because our driver was like 30 secs. Late to the safety meeting or some shit and gave us a 1 year suspension
Smokey Yunik
Most brilliant rule bender ever
At one point there were factory-backed teams from six different makers. That kind of money, though small by today's standards, was unheard of in those days. Second place was not an option. They were ALL, not just Penske, doing whatever they had to do.
I think that is what racing should be about not cookie cutter racing cars that are identical whoever builds faster car wins yeah!
Then it's a race of wallets as you can hire anyone clever or buy the top tech. Much like any local track these days, just buy your way to the trophy. Before all the tech and aftermarket there was a real diy clever advantage of teams or individuals.
Very impressive. Who knows how many championships were won in other motorsports by cheating...
Lancia, with their cardboard roll cages, road salt, and a convoy of less than 200 037s.
Eli Hoopengarner yep lmao, taking the guy who was supposed to count the rest of the 037s to a 5 course meal while they moved the original ones to a new spot😂
Porsche used kinda same trick in 1969. They had to have 25 road-going versions of 917's for inspection and they were able to show them. Just not all of them were complete, unlike the rule demanded, but inspectors didn't bother to check them properly. There was 25 917's on the parking lot and that's it.
The good ol' days...
Sam Posey said, "Everyone cheated from the front of the car to the back of the car."
Meaning...every car in competition back then.
The best part of the story is the fact that the officials didn't catch them in 1968. Why, you ask..?? Well, they had brought back that illegal 67 car along with a legal 68 just like you said BUT 67 Camaros had vent glasses and no side marker lamps whereas the 68 had NO vent glasses and holes where they had removed the side lamps... And the inspectors never noticed that. You could spot those vent windows from a hundred yards away (it's still the best surefire way to tell the years apart because they're NOT interchangeable) but they never noticed them while they were climbing around inspecting them.
To me, this is the greatest single example of Penske's 'unfair advantage' and my absolute favorite cheating story....
The Dodge Dart and cuda hemi super stock did the exact same thing to the doors and main body
Chevy and mopar cheating, imagine that.
Rules are meant to be broken !
Very much agreed
Assholes are ment to be widened
no they're not
lol that opposite of what they are meant for
Not a problem as long as you benefit from it, right?
This is one of those things where you can be first all the time, but you will never go down as a legend. Great idea, but at the cost of a genuine motorsport and ruining it for many others.
If the organizer wasn't smart enough to weigh the winning cars AFTER the race, well...
Chevy is like the mafia of racing
That man is a pure genius💟💖
It was a great car, driver, and team. Grew up around Delaware County, PA and often saw them at events. Probably did a lot to advance interest in that genre of racing. In motorsports, modification for advantage is very common. The next season, everyone is doing it and after that, it's allowed.
All manufacturers did this in the early 70s Group 5 touring cars...legend has it the GAA cosworth Capri's were 960kg with 470hp!...
"It's not cheating. It's creative interpretation of the rules." a street stock racer.
Thats how big business works . Gm takes a bailout then shuts down plants- moves them to mexico
Ford took the bail out money aswell
@@Ls3guy ford got 5 billion ,gm got 11 billion
ford is not shutting plants or leaving European market .
which is worse
@@grandebigy you might want to get updated on that because they are
@@Ls3guy ev production
@@Ls3guy general motors plant in Canada is staying open at least
Acid dipping was the invention of the Penske team for sure but other's caught on and followed suite. During the 1970 season Sam Posey's Challenger was discovered to be acid dipped after a track inspector at Laguna Seca rested a beer on the roof and it dented in. The team had to borrow a the roof from a stock Challenger at a Monterey dealership.
Smokey Yunick's Trans Am Camaro was a smarter cheat. Instead of ruining the cars structural rigidity, Yunick put a deflated basketball in the gas tank. When the inspectors would check the fuel capacity he would inflate the ball, providing less space in the fuel tank.
You forgot to mention that the 1968 Camaro didn't have vent wing windows but the 1967 Camaro did - and the inspectors never noticed the difference. Out on the track it was always the one with the vent windows winning. Cheats like this got ended by immediately weighing cars after a race, and disallowing other tricks they'd used to hide they were only having one of the two cars inspected before the races.
It's not cheating if you don't get caught, this is the n°1 rule of motorsport.
no that is the number 1 rule of criminals.
The problem is that they did get caught, so they stooped to extortion.
Blatant cheating.
It reminds me of Allan Moffat Racing in Australia, where they wanted to fit the widest possible tires on his Ford Falcon XB. Since 'coachwork' wasn't allowed (cutting the metal body or the gas tank), they narrowed the tank by over-inflating it with air pressure, causing it to bulge the front, rear and top/bottom, forcing the sides to be dragged inwards on the square tank. He was never caught, only admitting it after his retirement.
I read mark Donahue's book. And Smokey Yunick's. Every race team was acid dipping. Donahue also had aluminum body panels for half the second camaro season, hence the easy dents
"Try to win, lose if you must, but always cheat."
--Jesse Ventura
Cheating. Full stop.
Straight to the point, I like this
It's fun to look back on stuff like this form the good old days but I can't help feeling it's part of why motorsports today are such a boring over regular snooze feast. Lancia for example made a rollcage out of cardboard tubing to keep weight down, it was one of the many factors that killed Group B rally.
Cheating. By 1970 the AMC team had gotten its shit together, Penske got busted and AMC dominated Trans Am racing. In 71 Chevy pulled out, went to NASCAR and the NHRA dropping big bucks and buying rule changes that favored Chevy. They outlawed the Chrysler Hemis in both Pro Stock and NASCAR making it easier for Chevy to win both classes. Then when the gas crunch hit and emissions standards drove the automakers to run smaller engines Chevy bought off NASCAR to us a 355 cubic inch limit. This left GM to run their motors without much problem, but Ford had trouble because a .030" overbore left them at 356 cubes. Chrysler and AMC had 360's, so those engines had to endure the expense of being destroyed to compete. The same thing then happened in NHRA Pro Stock. So racers running Ford, Chrysler or AMC had to do a lot of expensive custom work to qualify, but Wally Booth and Dick Aarons proved the AMC could do the job. Then Bob Gliddon and Dyno Don Nicholson worked their magic to win as well. After a few years of that the rules loosened up and pro stock cubic inch limits were raised to 500 cu inches. All manufacturers had to come up with custom parts to make use of the big cube engines. And it worked fairly well, especially when factory blocks and heads were mandated. But soon the rules changed so that anything could be run as long as it fit under the factory valve covers. Soon after the engines being run in Pro Stock didn't come close to resembling their factory counter parts. The whole reason behind pro stock was to showcase a race car that one could buy at the dealership, and modify to run in the class. Buy on Tuesday, race on Sunday! But things got so strange that things became unrecognizable when compared to the factory counter parts. Today's Camaros look nothing like the factory cars, with huge raised and stretched hoods and thin windshields. Not right at all. The Camaros bent their aerodynamics so much that Mopar backed out almost completely. And Ford has been gone fore a decade or so even though their new Mustang would make a killer platform for ProStock! Too bad.
ken cohagen the amc was run by pensky.
ken cohagen u are so wrong.nhra allowed boss 429
ken cohagen pretty sure it was a 358 limit.study your facts before spouting off.
Ken all that you stated is actually false.
You must be a Chevy clown !!
Not cheating. Standard production parts made lighter. Substituting aluminum or fiberglass body parts would be cheating.
I love rule bending in racing. All it is is encouraging a close look at the rules.
I remember watching what might have been the first IROC race of champions where they took like 16 camaros and tried to make them as performance identical as possible so that all the difference would just be the drivers.
All kinds of effort, pains , and expense was taken to insure that all the cars were as identical as possible and in the staging and lapping, before the race was even officially started, they had a crash, a pile up, and most of the cars were seriously damaged.
So much for identical cars.
cheating
ahahahahahahahaha this top level cheating
Props for literally explaining the video in 30 seconds
Expectation: lightest car in race
Reality: well yeah, but it's also as weak as a tin can
Unfortunately I would have to say Donahue was cheating.
Everybody was doing mechanical trickery, and Penske did not invent acid dipping. What Penske did was to throw way, WAY more money down than any other team had at the time. Smokey said he ruined the sport of auto racing with his financial and therefore political domination. Lastly...Switching cars is not rule bending, it is outright corruption. There goes the age old spirit of competition in the name of the all mighty dollar...
That's just the smartest rule bend I ever
Seen.
The racing equivalent of having an ace up your sleeve.