After reading about "what is fast" I wonder why you never hear about cheating in NHRA like you do in NASCAR. Has anyone got ant stories?
I don't recall what year it was, (during the 90's I think) anywho... the Mopar pro stock guys were takin everyone to school then "someone" broke into their shop and "destroyed" everything in there. I believe it put em out of commision for a little over a year. HMMMM... I am sure someone on here has a much better memory and knows much more about it than I do. I'd love to know what "really" happened.
I remeber hearing about a dry sump tank blowing up in a Pro Stock awile back because it had a nitrous bottle hidden in it.
There were rumors (allegedly) that the Dodge boys were using nitrous hidden in the hood scoops, and bottles hidden in the guys race suits.... And then the shop was "broken in to"
I heard the same and even know of an incident where a guy was caught with a nitrous bottle in his tank and esscorted out of the track.
I heard stories about a guy from the NW going to mopar lots at night and torching off front suspentions motor and all and wheelbarrowing them off into a truck
Here's Jerry Eckman's story. http://www.compe***ionplus.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1547&Itemid=24 Hidden nitrous bottle blew up on him ending his career.
Back in the "run what you brung" era of the 60's rumors constanly swirled around the colorful Hubert Platt of Georgia Shaker fame. Seems his Fords were always tough to beat. I hear he had water tanks in his doors when he went through the scales and later drained in the pits for a weight advantage. Special fuel were always rumored as well. So much so that there's a Hubert Platt race fuel sticker for sale these days. Have one on the gas door of my truck. Hubert attends many nostalgia events these days and is always entertaining. If it really was "run what you brung" how can you be considered a cheater? . Also there was a fuel called hydrazine that was considered cheating in the nitro cl***es.
"(AGAIN I type to slow and you guys beat me to the info)" That was Jerry Eckman, the story is here: http://www.compe***ionplus.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1547&Itemid=24 as far as the dodge boys go, back then, Yes they were very dominate in the 80' and 90's and then it appered that the race shop was broken into and engines and parts were destroyed and it took them years to recover and be somewhat compe***ive, so it would appear that something was missing from their race program and it would logical to believe that they were running Nitrous but no one was ever arrested for the break in and no evidence of nitrous was ever proven, so its still a mystery asto what "REALLY" went on. Its like Greg Anderson now, he seams to have the whole field covered and is almost allways the #1 quilifier, so the rumors are that he is cheating somehow, who know, he sure has some advantage but who knows what it is. and I believe that Billy Glidden Quilified and won a event(years ago) and after he was declaired to be legal he showed NHRA how NOS could be hidden and used to win the event. I am sure a lot of people are pushing the rules as far as they can to be compe***ive. Ron....
They figured "Da Grump" had to be cheating when his SBC was cleaning up on those HEMIs all those years ago.............never proven...........
about 61 winternationals when upon tear down they cc'd the heads. Dyno Don Nicolson got busted with a milled block. when he was still a Chevy guy in Calif. I think it was 60 that he blew 2nd gear on Saturday at the winternationals stopped by Irwindale on the way home took the SS cl*** win with 1st, 3rd and 4th gears and was back at pomona sunday morning with a new trans. He always said it wasn't cheating unless you got caught
If you're a big enough player or on thier good side they just quietly tell you to stop, that is if they can figure it out because they don't really have adequately trained people looking
Wayne county Mopar cars got caught and NHRA was ready to tell the news, when MOPAR, a major sponsor to NHRA, threatened to withdraw their sponsorship if NHRA didn't let WC handle this in a "nice" way. And I believe it was Rusty Glidden who got caught and destroyed his father's rep. WJ cheated with rocket fuel for years before NHRA caught him. KJ got caught with timers for the pneumatic gear changing system.
My uncle used to sneak by tech in the early '60s with an aluminum bellhousing in his Logghe ch***is...painted it with enough metal shavings in the paint to have a magnet stick to it. I was there when the bottle blew in Eckman's oil tank. Covered spectators with oil as they watched the warm-up. The bottle shot to another trailer and spun around on the ground venting. That crew chief picked it up, walked over to Orndorf/Eckman, Orndorf grabbed it, threw it in the trailer, loaded the car back up and left the track. NHRA had a sherrif posted at the trailer for the rest of the day and all night. The Dodge Boys probably were running nitrous...there are several pics of big fireballs coming out of their hoodscoops. Gasoline in a PS engine just doesn't do that, but a nitrous backfire is pretty distinct. The team was popular, Mopar's support was big...the speculation was that NHRA pulled them aside, gave them the rock/hard-place, save-face talk, and shortly after their shop was broken into and all their motors destroyed by vandals. It always seemed odd to me that a well-funded team could have ALL their motors and spare parts destroyed, and not be able to get back into action...no insurance money? The sponsor wouldn't just walk away from a successful operation and let it for for a year. Surely the team could have s****ed up ONE engine apiece for the two cars and qualified for a race in a year's time. -Brad
Hydrazine is extremely nasty ****. It is what is used in the space shuttle's at***ude control thrusters. It's a mono-propellant, which to the layman means it can go boom all by itself, no second reactant needed It's also highly carcinogenic.
you can run nitro in an a/sa camaro and get away with it also if theres nitrous in a roll cage the tube will be wet
Not quite as glamorous, but there's a group that got named "The Dirty Dozen" a few years back in IHRA...bracket racers (including current Pro Stock driver Dave Connolly and his dad) that got busted using a 'Matty Box'. Had a driveshaft counter, etc. and a computer that had LED's on the dash that would light up to tell the driver if he was too going too fast or slow to run his dial-in. They got a lifetime suspension.
The Dodge Boys had the nitrous hidden in the second battery they carried. I will take exception to one thing commonly posted, that being a gas engine won't backfire through the carb with huge fireballs without giggle gas. We had a distributor rotor break back in 1968 on our car, and it damn near took the hood off the car, with a gigantic fireball all around the hood area, and we had never heard of nitrous; which was still many years away from common use in drag cars. Warren Johnson was a big critic of the Dodge Boys, but a few weeks later his son Kurt was turning his motor over in the pits with a breaker bar on the crank to set the valves, and the intake manifold blew off the car, sending Kurt to the hospital. Nothing was ever said about that; probably because W.J. was a champion (as long as Bob Glidden wasn't racing). Also, I don't remember anyone accusing Grumpy of cheating with his small block Vega, and we ran NED 1 pro stock same as him; but with a hemi duster. The problem was that tube frame pro stock cars were expressly forbidden in the NHRA rule book until he showed up with his SRD built car. All of a sudden his car was legal. Then NHRA made the hemi's run something like 7.25 lbs per cubic inch, and the small blocks ran at 6.5 lbs per cubic inch. That was a huge and unfair disadvantage for any Mopar racer. NHRA did the same thing to Roush and Glidden whenever they started beatng the GM cars. In fact, the only brand they haven't factored when they begin to dominate is Chevy. So Chevy has to have an unfair advantage over it's compe***ion to win on race day. It's the same thing NHRA did with Hardly Ableson in pro stock bike. For the first several seasons the Hardly's ran almost twice the displacement and about a 100 lbs less weight than the jap bikes. So racing is defined by the least common denominator, the slowest, most prone to breakage vehicles which show up. To the subject of this thread, Ramchargers would fill their slicks with water for the weigh in. One day a Ford racer saw the Ramcharger's strugling to get the slicks out of the trunk and went to help the guy out. "BUSTED!" Good times, indeed.
growing up at the track i witnessed, many times, very early model delay boxes hidden in the battery boxes and such.....before they were legal.
i watched rich matty win the bracket finals with the fine 409 62.... never had the hood up between rounds...that was 91 or so...also heard they were lauching the car off of a video camera...a friend saw the car go bad red when some one walked in front of the the camera .... a customer of mine ran him at indy or norwalk ...said the crowd applauded when gary beat him .... brandon
I was in the stands at the US Nationals during the first night time qualifying in it's history. Had reserved seats for the Homecoming participants right at the start line. Mopar either Aldermann or Geoffion lined up on the tower side.....Yellow...BOOM!...Green and the Mopar sat there. A very lazy flame rolled out of the scoop on the WC car. Nearly all who were in the stands around us went whoa! Seen that before!. There was no doubt what we had seen. They were caught red-*** handed because of it being uder the lights. The flame was light on fuel and heavy on O2. It has a special look to it. Chrysler was THE major sponsor for NHRA and THEIR premier team just had catostophic failure at the big show in front of a bunch of people. NHRA handled it the only way they could save face and $$$$$. It was the $$$$$ that talked don't ever let anyone tell you other wise.
funny **** goes on when you think you can get away with it.... btw, alderman should have NEVER been able to race again, anyway (dope). btw2, what ever happed to the dodge boys?
prolly, ya just don't hear about it out in the west.... no idea where the closest IHRA track is.... ahra USED to be ran at manhatten, KS years ago. don't know if the track is still in existance....
The Jalopy Journal
