Smokey yunick hp/race stories

The AVG was originally not a part of the US armed forces. After Pearl Harbor, it was forcibly absorbed by the USAAF. Kind of a Lend/Lease deal, but with people.

 

My wife got me the "Sex,Lies&Superspeedways" CD audio set for Christmas.
No doubt, he doesn't candy coat anything.Goes into detail of his pilot training
but not a lot about missions other than he flew "tail end charlie" position in
formation and his thoughts on that. Its great to listen too those adventures
that will never be repeated while wrenching out in the shop.

 

My wife bought me the 3 book deal he did just before he died. She knew from all the years of me talking about him I would enjoy reading them. When I opened the box on Christmas morning I couldn't believe it as I knew how much they were going for. After the holidays I started reading and never stopped except to sleep and eat until I finished all three. I'm going to reread them sometime soon just to refresh my memory on what was an extraordinary life. If anyone has access to them I would recommend reading all three. Smokey doesn't pull any punches, calls them like he saw them. He didn't have anything to loose at that point, he was dying and some say he lived longer than expected just to finish them. He died shortly after the third one was done.

Frank

 

We were at the Charlotte NC flea market years ago. It was raining cats and dogs so we were in the camper listening to an interview with him on the radio. It was so cool. The thing that I remember the most was that he said if his computerized electronic FI rental car broke down he'd have no idea how to fix it to get home. It cheered me up knowing I was not alone.

A buddy of mine showed me where the "The best damn garage in town" was actually located in Daytona once. I was excited to see the old buildings. Weird huh?

 

yes i did

 

tommy Iwas there in charlotte , up in the stands in the inclosed part Smokey did a Q and A session . We learned a lot in just a few min. Glad I tuffed out the rain and cold. My dad was there with me Smokey was his hero. Great day Great man . To bad nascar shuned him. I work around nascar people 98% have no idea who he was or what he did for the racing sports.
Smokey told us he drove a ford tempo plain jane no raido or any thing just leave the keys in it windows down its brand new but its junk nobody gona steal it. Man we were rolling with laughter.
Read the books and dont beleve the other storys .He told it like it was. In the end he had nothing to gain by making stuff up.
rtp

 

I remember back during the first gas shortage (around '71), Hot Rod ran an article about a homogenizer he was developing. Looked kinda like a turbo. He had said that 350 cubes was the max because it made too much power for anything bigger. I wish I had kept the article because I forgot the principle of the dang thing.

 

Other than his more public accomplishments, he had a couple tricks he passed along to us for a midget motor in the 70's. He sent us an epoxy that we poured into the block to encapsulate the bottom of the sleeves. It formed an inch plate in the bottom of the water jacket. This kept the little chevy 4 cyl. from distorting with as much compression as we were running. It made an unbelievable difference, but ran a bit hotter which he warned us about in advance. He was brilliant...

 

Back cover of a 1955 HRM:

 

Hey, Doc, The Flying tiger info is in one of Smokey's books. It's been quite a while since I read them, so I can't remember the details. It might just have been a story of ferrying fuel in drums over the "HUMP". Would that make sense?

In the same book was a story of his salvaging a B-25, I think it was, and using it for his own delivery and procurement missions.

Smokey's books are gold.

Frank

 

The "banana car" was built by Junior Johnson not Smokey.

 

buy his books and you can resd all about him

 

The real Chevelle is in the Floyd Garrett muscle car museum in Sevierville, TN. In the 60s a friend of mine who was a very accomplished mechanic used to call Smokey for advice with high performance issues. He was always available and helpful. He was a true mechanical genius and did a lot of research for GM on the QT. I remember the buzz he caused when he showed up with a race car and the headers had 1/8 in holes drilled about an inch from the header flanges. Everyone wondered if it was a performance secret and started drilling holes in their headers too. Years later he admitted the holes were for exhaust temp probes to test for fuel distribution.

 

In '63 or '64, He also put the first Big block in a chevelle. he then dropped one off at the local chevy parts dealer. When NASCAR tried to reject the big block as not a production engine, he told them to check it with the local dealer....sure enough, they "had" one in stock.

 

Some very neat info.

 

The Auctions fetched BIG money..a few years before Smokey passed.

 

Smokey was incredible...Fantasy stories notwithstanding..truth was better (craftier) than fiction


No one drank more liquor than Turner & Smokey

 

Vic Edelbrock now owns the #13 Camaro Trans Am race car he built. When it was having the restoration done, they found that NOTHING on the car was "Camaro" Edelbrock said you could write a book on just that one car. They still race it in the "Vintage" race events.

 

The car that vic owns,has a great story.Smokey showed up with it at riverside,took it off the trailer,qualified it on the pole,loaded it back up and left!He was testing something,and knew everyone would run flat for qualifying .

 

Another Smokey story: the sactioning bodies rules stated no chopped flywheels. Smokey drilled a large number of holes radialy in the flywheel. Then he welded the holes closed then machined till the circumfrence you couldn't see the modification.

 

As a 26 year old who works in nascar, reading smokeys books make me yearn for the good ol days of stock car racing. I encourage anyone who has the chance, to get his three book set. One thick book on his entire life away from racing, from the war to living in the south american jungle. Then two more books, one on indy and the other on stock car racing. After receiving these for christmas several years ago, I have read each cover to cover a few times and always enjoy them.

One of my favorites (of many), was him giving potential new drivers the can of "peanuts" with the springie snake in it test. Out of all his drivers, Mario, Curtis, etc, He knew Paul Goldsmith confused:I believe) had what it takes because he caught it first try without knowing what was coming. I think he said curtis never could catch it even knowing it was coming!

 

ZZ- the way I remember the story he had the starter ring gear pressed off first, drilled the holes, then pressed the ring gear back on which covered the holes. However he did it, it was pretty clever.

 

As a kid I used to read the column "ASK SMOKEY" that used to appear in either Popular Science or Popular Mechanics.

I remember quite a few years ago one of the sanctioning bodies came up with a new rule that said there could be no moving parts inside an intake manifold. Was it Nascar?

Everyone was scratching their heads and saying that Smokey must be up to something again, but couldn't figure out exactly what. It had people very puzzled.

Does anyone know what it was about? Variable sizes for the plenum or something?
Was it Smokey again?
What was the new "advantage" they had to neutralize by changing the rules again?

He was a real nice guy when I chatted with him in Daytona. He took the time to answer all sorts of questions. I wish I would have remembered to ask him that one.

 

Doc that puzzeled me when I read it, so I searched on and found a refference to a transport line started by vets after WW II. they were given prefference to purchase surplus planes and in 1945 they started the Flying Tiger Lines and flew cargo over the hump during Korea and Vietnam. Put htis togeather with the mention of him having a plane for cargo and maybe thats it. remember the article said he flew for the flying tigers not with them.

 

I always figured it was an honor to have a rule created after you.

Sort of like a statue for folks to look at and wonder about for years to come.

K

 

He had built 2 of those Chevelles. One Curtis Turner trashed and the other one is the one that he drove off without the fuel cell at tech inspection. They were full size, not 7/8 scale as the legend has it.

The cars had all sorts of tricks done to them, the body was moved to the left on the frame, the holes in the front bumper were welded up and it was rechromed, the underside of the car had nothing hanging down under it, the exhaust was tucked up. The side glass was moved outward to streamline the body.

He was the master at creative interpretation of the rules. I did go by his shop years ago in Daytona, nobody was there but I would have liked to stop in to see the operation. He did have a big auction a number of years back and a lot of rare pieces went for some good bucks.

Bob

 

The 7/8 scale cars are different cars than the infamous "fuel cell" cars.

 

Smokey was a top builder in the 50's,Won Indy in 1960 I believe? But after that his cars didn't win much if at all despite all his tricks and secrets.Do you think it was a money thing,like he wasn't funded as well as others?

 

yup

 

One of the many sayings attributed to Smokey this is my favorite. "It isn't what the rules say you can't do, it's what they don't say you can't do".