Hilarious tales of "rumor-paranoia" in racing

Got this idea from the "engine cross-pollination" thread. Here we post stories of racing teams doing and trying ridiculous things based solely on rumor because they're worried that they're leaving speed on the table if they don't.

1. BMW's 1500hp 1.5L '80s turbo F1 engine. It was using a modified production block. A rumor was soon started that BMW was using "weathered" blocks, that had a ton of mileage on them or were buried or left in the rain and peed on or all of the above. They weren't, but in response to the rumors that they knew were false, they tested the idea anyway. "Weathered" blocks were no good.

2. 1980 Williams F1 team tries solid rods in place of their coilovers because there's a rumor that another team is doing this. Surprise, it's too harsh to run.

3. Heard a story about the first team to run a wing with a Gurney flap. When rivals questioned them about it, to hide their secret they said that the flap was there to protect the crew's hands when pushing the car. Later, a rival team was seen running an upside-down Gurney flap

And Rick thought I was crazy when I wanted to do a no suspension Challenge car.

Stampie wrote: And Rick thought I was crazy when I wanted to do a no suspension Challenge car.

Hey, 90% of the suspension is in the tires anyway. Go for it!

I call it the dog turd effect.

If a racer wins with a dog turd on his hood, the next race many will be sporting dog turds!

The opposite of this is true as well. The Daytona and Superbird had rear facing scoops above the front tires to prevent air from getting trapped in the wheel wells. they told competitors that they were relief cutouts for the tires, because the car would squat at speed.

Everybody bought this explanation, and people still say this to this day.

Smokey Yunick drilled holes in his headers, tiny ones, an inch or so from the flange.

People saw them and tried dyno-ing all sorts of different holes in all sorts of different place to see what he was on to.

Apparently, depending on which version you believe, he was doing it either to see if the cylinder was still lit, or just to mess with people.

In reply to bentwrench:

Like Lisa Simpson to Homer: I have a rock and there are no tigers around so obviously this rock keeps tigers away.

"Lisa, I'd like you buy your rock."

In reply to AClockworkGarage:

I've been guilty of believing that the scoops were reliefs for the tires.

Only, I heard it said as fact on either Power Block or a Velocity show.

Richard Petty showed up in Daytona around 67 or 68 with a vinyl roof on his Plymouth. It was supposed to be more aerodynamic by breaking up the airflow boundary layer.

A couple of my favorite ones.

The first one goes past the rumor stage. Ferrari were pissed off at the FIA for impending rule changes so they threatened to leave F1 and go the Indy car. They went so far as to build the 637 Indy car with a V8 turbo engine and test it before deciding to play nice and stay in F1.

The other is when Lotus first raced the Lotus 78 ground effect car in 1977 no one could figure out how they were cornering so fast at first. To keep people guessing on the wrong track Colin Chapman started throwing people off the scent by letting slip he had a new special LSD. Cars were worked on in the open more back then, so whenever they were working on the back of the transaxle they parts would be carried out from the truck with a towel over them so people couldn't see them. Then they would have a group of mechanics stand around the back of the car to keep prying eyes away from the trick trans parts. It worked really well for a short time.

Another one I’m not 100% on the exact details, but I’m pretty sure it goes like this. Back in the early mid 60’s when Breedlove, Afron and Green were trading Land Speed Records, Breedlove had a parachute failure and went off the end of the course into a boggy march. The car was almost totaled, but he told the world the damage was minor and he could be back running in a few days. The reason was to try and discourage one of the others from making a last minuet grab for the title before the end of the season, making them think he could turn around and get it back.

I’d love to hear a more accurate and detailed telling if someone knows it.

Duct tape rolls made out of lead, found going in cars going thru tech

Cage filled with buckshot to get thru tech on weight, then a trap door to release it

Crew guys pulling the rear quarters out, in front of the rear wheels to help with downforce

DukeOfUndersteer wrote: Crew guys pulling the rear quarters out, in front of the rear wheels to help with downforce

Also an effective tire-slicing tool.

Back before the NE dirt track modifieds became cookie cutter cars they actually ran stock bodies. First it was which was faster, coupe or sedan, then we started with Valiant, then Gremlin with everyone following the trend. I used to say, if someone painted their tires green and won, next week every one would have green tires and arguments about which shade was faster would proliferate.

How about the zero penalty lap Team McQueen 400SX Chumpcar? Toyota 1UZ-FE V8 in a 240SX. Lots and lots of butthurt in the Chumpcar community. Rumors of 400hp and 160+ mph at Brainerd, followed by forum outrage and rulebook turmoil that continues to this day.

Dirt track mind games were/are almost as much fun as driving.

A modified team decided to get around the engine claim rule by building Oldsmobile engines to dissuade other teams that used Ford/Chevy/Mopar engines from claiming their engines. The plan backfired when the engines were not up to running at the front.

Our race team included an experienced Late Model driver/builder/mechanic, an excellent welder/fabricator, 2 professional mechanics and a very resourceful team manager/sponsor promoter. We had 2 cars and finished top 5 or better with many wins. Before the 3rd season started a rumor began circulating that our team had sourced engines from military vehicles. These engines were supposed to have considerably more hp. After hearing about it, we painted our engines olive drab, arrived at the track early, removed the hoods, set up our lawn chairs and watched as the news spread like wildfire.

In reply to outasite:

Whoever started that rumor has clearly never driven a military vehicle.

Then there was Jeff Gordon's "T-Rex". He brought it out at The Winston, a set of sprint races that were all fairly short (under 50 miles each, IIRC). The car completely dominated the event, and NASCAR promptly banned it. Gordon's team ranted about how their R&D would be set back years now that they couldn't run it as their regular events.

Naturally, other teams tried to copy elements off the banned car... and they found out it was absolutely terrible on normal 400 or 500 mile races. The chassis had been designed to put a lot of heat into the tires for a sprint, and would chew up the tires on anything longer. Gordon's whole plan had been to run that at The Winston (literally the only NASCAR event where that would do any good), get it banned, and then have other teams shoot themselves in the foot trying to cheat by copying it.

snailmont5oh wrote:

Stampie wrote: And Rick thought I was crazy when I wanted to do a no suspension Challenge car.

Hey, 90% of the suspension is in the tires anyway. Go for it!

I'm pretty sure he used the words "accident waiting to happen" when I was told I couldn't do it.

I think the closest you can reasonably get to "no suspension" on a full-sized car is driving on bump stops, like an old Mini. But there's a fine line between "no suspension" and really, really hard springs. I've seen a stancebro on Speedhunters who had his car on custom springs with a rate of nearly 4000lb/in

When the diesel Audi R8 first debuted at the Sebring 12 hour, they had a huge bank of screens in their pits to monitor the car's vitals. Audi engineers were always looking at the screens, and seeing what was happening to the car in real-time.

Rumor has it that at least two of the screens were full of bogus information--- intentionally put up there to throw the Porsche team off-- -as they knew the P-car boys would be spying.

GameboyRMH wrote: I think the closest you can reasonably get to "no suspension" on a full-sized car is driving on bump stops, like an old Mini. But there's a fine line between "no suspension" and really, really hard springs. I've seen a stancebro on Speedhunters who had his car on custom springs with a rate of nearly 4000lb/in

Heyzeus Christo!! We went testing with the McLaren and had a Factory shoe in, a Factory Engineer as well as our own Engineer John Ward, trying out different spring rates and shock settings. The car was diabolical with 1500lb springs in it!

I cannot imagine anything over that being any good for anything!

Kenny Bernstein had his crew stick a towel over something whenever they popped his flopper open. Don't know if he was hiding something or just making people think too hard.

There was a Scandinavian rally driver years back who said that, if he was winning his series but there was someone catching up to him in points, he would talk about left foot braking in front of him. Then he wouldn't have to worry about the other driver for the rest of the season

Oh, are we including mind games? I've seen lots at the local dragstrips.

A bunch of guys shouting, throwing tools, etc before the round, they all push the car to the line, car starts, no burnout, and makes a completely normal pass. The dude in the other lane dialed super soft and left late because he was convinced the car was hurt.

Dialing WAY too soft on a slow car and absolutely burying the brake pedal at the line, no way the faster car can avoid a breakout if they dialed close.

Dialing exactly the same as a slower car and just pacing them down the track.

Lots of that stuff happens every weekend at your local tracks.

tuna55 wrote: Smokey Yunick drilled holes in his headers, tiny ones, an inch or so from the flange. People saw them and tried dyno-ing all sorts of different holes in all sorts of different place to see what he was on to. Apparently, depending on which version you believe, he was doing it either to see if the cylinder was still lit, or just to mess with people.

I read about this from a guy that did some work with him and used to build Offy engines for F1 teams. He said the holes where so Smokey could see the how each cylinder was burning mixture wise. And yes, no one had any idea what they were for and assumed there were some sort of performance trick.