ever strech the meaning of STOCK in a race?

Bob and a few other nailed it. I have heard this said by many a racer (in hushed tones of course!). No one is really running what they say they're running, especially in vintage racing. Suspensions are modified, components are cleverly disguised, and races are won...sometimes. Sometimes the other guys have you beat because of what they've been able to sneak in and you didn't!
I recall seeing my old boss at a race shop I was working at intricately cutting up and old 60's intake into little pieces in hopes of hiding an EFI setup in it. We had some pretty good fabricators, but there just wasn't enough to work with. Close, but no dice.
I also recall some of the old racing relics we worked on with lots of little hidden sins from decades past that had probably won them quite a few races.
The bottom line is that the other guys are doing it. Period. You might find some guy running exactly what he says he is for integrity, but he'll eventually get tired of losing and start "tweaking" stuff too.

 

There is a song p***age that fits this 'rule bending/interpretation' "pleased to meet YOU, hope ya guess mah name" Cheat DEATH not each other.

 

in oval track racing most of the cheating is in the beginner cl***es they are not checked as well.we checked the first three positions and any car that turned good times but didn't finish or fell out of the top three. tried and keep everyone honest, even had one racer who had finished 10th come to see me when i was getting ready to do the pay-out Don told me he was illegal that he was running an oversize motor and he felt bad he lost all his points and the 10th place but i paid his tow money. I was promoter, tech inspector, and racer and was voted sportsman of the year it all comes down to cheating is cheating and there is no honour in it.

 

Sometimes pushing the limits just to see what you can get away with is part of the fun, I imagine. In the cl*** I race, there's very few ways to cheat.


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There's wide spread cheating in all cl***es. Here in the midwest the top 2 cl***es are modifies and late models. I doubt there's 100% legal modified that runs in the top 10 at any track. Electronic traction control and juiced tires are major problem in late models.

 

i'm not saying there is no cheating in the higher cl***es it's just more blatant in the lowers the stricter the tech less there is cheating. if there are rules and they can't be policed or aren't then you'll get cheating. last year we had a 8:71 blower specially built to the letter of the rules the dist offset and the blower moved back, at the end of the season the changed the rules outlawing the blower and offset dist so we had to change the set-up on all 3 motors we didn't cheat and we get penalized

 

Theres a saying that always comes to mind...

Win if you can, Loose if you must, But Always cheat....

 

Whenever there is compe***ion there will be cheating. We used to call it "illuminating the grey areas." It's a fact of life & you will never eliminate it. If winning wasn't important, why bother to race? I'll bet this whole discussion would change if we were talking about paying Income Tax.

 

It's the EGO. The EGO demands a win at all cost. What ever it takes. It feeds the ego, and the cycle continues into other areas of life. Government is way past OT.

 

It appears you cheated in English cl*** too...

Now that's funny.

 

There are 2 ways to read every rule book.
1) The rules tell you what you CAN do.
2) The rules tell you what you CAN'T do.
Then, each track enforces its rule book differently, some follow the rule book to the letter, and some use the rule book as a suggestion. Its pretty obvious most tracks were inconsistant on rule enforcement. That said, you have to know how the track your running at enforce the rules and how they read them. The track determines what is cheating, and what is being compe***ive.

The track we raced at had a rule in our cl*** that stated "factory stock parts" in the motor. You were allowed a "clean up over bore".
So after several years some guy shows up with a 454 Monty Carlo and blew us all away. Everyone protested. The guy told us all the parts came across the Chevy dealer counter, and they were all GM part numbers, so they must have been "factory stock"! He also stated the motor was in terible condition, it took an over bore of .125 to "clean it up"! Didn't take long for things to escalate from there. Gene

 

A friend from up North had a low budget looking 396ci Stock Eliminator Chevy wagon pulling impressive wheelies & beating his well prepped legal car in the finals on a regular basis. The wagon was eventually protested and found to have a punched out 454 and a stack of large steel plates in the back area under a rug. Worst case of cheating I ever heard of. --- Steve ---

 

One area race promoter's response to racers complaining that other racers were cheating was "Shut up and race!"
Another promoter said he though one racer was cheating. When asked if he checked the car his response was "the only thing I checked was to see if he bought a pit p***."

The more prize money at stake, the more cheating there will be.....and the more creative the racers will be making it tougher for the tech guys to bust them.

Someone told me Smokey Yunick would have rather cheated and run 2nd than be legal and win.

 

maybe it just dumb luck but every time i've been involved except for once and i stuck with it until until i finished constantly in the top three. and always legal if it's not legal your not a winner. held practice sessions to help teams on set-ups, always help everyone, one time a guy was loading his car he didn't have a clutch, he didn't do any work on his car just drove and paid for everything, we repaired his car and he went out a kicked my ***, he asked why i had helped, to which i replied it's compe***ion that counts.

 

sorry i left out some words: maybe it just dumb luck but every time i've been involved we always ran up front right out of the box.

 

my sentiments exactly. it ain't cheatin till you get caught.

my favorite was Dyno Don Nicolson when he got caught at the winter nationals when he was running Chevrolets out of C.S. Meade in Pasadena.

used to be when you were protested after a win. you had to pull a head. they would cc the head and check the bore, stroke and pistons. they came out with new equipment that could check without pulling a head and ol Don lost that year. turned out he had milled the block instead of the heads, Busted. might be why he changed to Mercury. Don was a Hero before and after that incident. I spent many hours sitting on cars running on that dyno.

 

look at Indy and NASCAR they have evolved into spec racers. got so big and tech to the moon and they really have to stretch the rules where ever they can in order to get an edge on the compi***ion. big fines when they do get caught.

 

The last time Indy racing was fun to watch was back in the '80's,when guys like John ****era were building cars with weird crank configurations in small blocks,or Buick 3.8 based turbo motors were in the field.....exploring the limits of the rule book was actually the name of the game back then.
All motorsports need to get back to that point,in my opinion.


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In 1964 I had a 57 Ford custom 300 with a 427/425 in it out of a 63 1/2 galaxie with a 3 speed OD & 4.56 gears. You better believe that when asked I told the 55-57 chevy guys that it had a stock engine in it because it did. They never asked but ***umed it was a 312, not my problem. All they asked me was if the motor was stock .

 

As a stock eliminator veteran from 1972-1976, I can truthfully say that all the guys who were NOT stretching the meaning of STOCK were in my rear view mirror at the finish line ... lol. I'm sure it is still the same way. --- Rulebook is only a guideline, it's really what you can get by tech that really counts --- Steve ---

 

You guys just keep telling yourselfs that all racer cheat.

Not all of them do.


But I guess if you want to run with the pack in a cl*** where it is the norm, you have no option to do it as well.
Or find something else to compete in.


Personally, I think it cheapens the real talent.

Cause once the cheating starts, you'll never know who the best and most talented driver/constructor combination would have been.