Saturday, November 18, 2006

Racing, click on these for full size,



Though Smokey set several speed and endurance records with the car at Bonneville, with both a 302 cubic inch and a 396 cubic inch engine, it never won a race while Yunick owned it. It was later sold to Don Yenko, who did win several races.

A stock appearing Camaro, Smokey had acid-dipped the body panels and installed thinner glass to reduce weight, tilted the front end down and the windshield back for aerodynamics, widened the fenders, z'ed the front frame, and sucked the floorpan up to lower the car. The driprails were even brought closer to the body for a tiny aerodynamic improvement. Don't forget that the most common thing Smokey did to all his cars, was to streamline them for reduces air drag, all the underside was modified to reduce angles and flow air around flat spots. All of the aerodynamic things Smokey did are readily attributed to his experiences as a B-17 pilot, and the knowledge gained from airplane design and dynamics.