Friday, July 27, 2018

I heard a new story about Smokey Yunick, and the innovations he did to improve speed on his race car

he mounted his generator (or alternator) behind the grill, with a fan on it where normally it would have a pulley, and let the wind spin the damn thing instead of it's parasitic loss on the engine power

another story new to me, and probably not true nor accurate, is that he asked to borrow the Chevelle templates before the race to check his car, at which point he made duplicate templates that only fit his car, and returned the new templates that only fit his car to NASCAR.

another new to me story was that on one car he'd stood on the roof, creating a high pressure zone over the car at speed, and ending in a nearly inverted air dam at the back of the roof. Inspectors balked, but Smokey said he'd rebuilt a wrecked race car, and hadn't fixed the roof.

one I've never heard of before is that he used a helmet made of lead, hanging inside the car during inspection to make weight, then left that in the trailer and handed his driver a regular helmet for the race

http://digg.com/video/henry-smokey-yunick
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=40&v=lePZF17Tz3U

thanks Steve!

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