I just saw Andrew Nelson's car in Hot Rod magazine. (I know that it has been noted here before, Congratulations Andrew!) But seeing it again made me wonder....
I am not trying to cast aspersions, but is the car Challenge legal without fenders? I thought that all body panels had to be present or replaced with suitable substitutes.
I think this question has already been asked.
If I remember right the fenders were in the trailer making them present at the challenge.
If it was discussed, I missed it. I am just curious, not trying to stir anything up.
It was talked about in varoius threads.
The rule read "All major body panels must be present" They were present at the event, just not on the car. It was a tight hole, but a hole none the less. The rule has since been re-written to read "Present and on the vehicle"
Also remember, this is an editorial event. Odds of them turning away a cool car that is in the sprit of the event are pretty slim. YMMV
Sean
sanyarcosean wrote: "All major body panels must be present" They were present at the event, just not on the car.
That's hilarious. Some Smokey Yunick stuff right there. Brilliant.
Some good Smokey stories here.
But the book that Yunick studied most was the one containing NASCAR’s new rules. In a piece entitled “Inside Smokey’s Bag of Tricks,” C.J. Baker quoted Smoke thusly: “You have to understand that when I got into this thing back in ’47, they didn’t have near as many rules as they do now. You could run whatever you thought you could get away under what NASCAR would call ‘being within the spirit of competition.’” This happened during what Smokey would later call his drinking days. Baker remembers Smokey telling him that people would come by the race shop for a few drinks, and the next thing he knew his competition was sniveling to France. “If you did something they (NASCAR) didn’t like, which was pretty much up to Bill France, they would fine you or throw you out of the race as ‘being outside the spirit of competition,’ even though there was no specific rule against the supposed infraction.”
Smokey’s M.O. was simple: If the rulebook didn’t specifically outlaw this or that, then it was OK to do this or that. No porting or polishing was allowed, so he would paint the ports with hard lacquer and sand them to a mirror finish. Or he would pump an abrasive slurry through the intake manifold runners to remove the lumps and bumps. NASCAR said no boring or stroking, but there was no rule against offset cranks. There was a rule against using lightweight flywheels, but there wasn’t a rule that prohibited removing the ring gear, laterally drilling lightening holes in the flywheel, then reinstalling the ring gear. “All those other guys were cheatin’ ten times worse than us,” remembered Yunick, “so it was just self-defense.”
Another Yunick improvisation was getting around the regulations specifying a maximum size for the fuel tank, by using eleven foot (three meter) coils of 2-inch (5-centimeter) diameter tubing for the fuel line to add about 5 gallons (19 liters)[1] to the car's fuel capacity. Once, NASCAR officials came up with a list of nine items for Yunick to fix before the car would be allowed on the track. The suspicious NASCAR officials had removed the tank for inspection. Yunick started the car with no gas tank and said "Better make it ten,"[2] and drove it back to the pits. He used a basketball in the fuel tank which could be inflated when the car's fuel capacity was checked and deflated for the race. Yunick also used such innovations as offset chassis, raised floors, roof spoilers, nitrous oxide injection, and other modifications often within the letter of the rule-book, if not the spirit. "All those other guys were cheatin' 10 times worse than us," Yunick wrote in his autobiography, "so it was just self-defense." Yunick's success was also due to his expertise in the aerodynamics of racing cars. Yunick also built a 1968 Camaro for Trans-Am racing. Although Yunick set several speed and endurance records with the car at Bonneville Speedway, with both a 302 cubic inch (~4942 cubic centimeter) and a 396 cubic inch (~6489 cubic centimeter) engine, it never won a race while Yunick owned it. It was later sold to Don Yenko, who did win several races. In typical Yunick fashion, the car, although superficially a stock Camaro, had acid-dipped body panels and thinner window glass to reduce weight, the front end of the body tilted downwards and the windshield laid back for aerodynamics, all four fenders widened, the front subframe Z'ed and the floorpan moved up to lower the car, and many other detailed modifications. The drip rails were even brought closer to the body for a tiny aerodynamic improvement. A connector to the engine oil system was extended into the car's interior, to allow the driver to add oil from a pressurized hose during pit stops. In order to allow the driver enough freedom of movement, the shoulder harness was modified to include a cable-ratchet mechanism from a military helicopter. In 1993, Vic Edelbrock, Jr. purchased and restored the car. Contrary to popular opinion, Yunick designed the first "safe wall" in the early 1960s using old tires between sheets of plywood but NASCAR did not adopt his idea. Also Yunick developed air jacks for stock cars in 1961 but NASCAR didn't deem them appropriate.
The rules get tweaked almost every year as the minions become whittier. 
Dan
I would be proud if I was creative enough, that the rules were altered due to something that I did. One of the reasons that I am as interested in the Challenge as much as I am, is that it is one of the very few places where auto racing isn't controlled by a very strict set of guidelines. I love the innovation of the competitors. I think that seat of the pants creativity has been legislated out of most of the sport. I know that there is still creativity at all levels or racing, but I like this format where creativity can be done with a broad stroke and not a fine line.
My Dad had a WKA go-kart restrictor plate rule rewritten back in the '90's.
The rule read that the carb. restrictor for my junior 100cc class had to be no larger than .600
All the stock restrictors we bought (and everyone ran) always measured .602 with the factory anodizing on them.
Dad had two 20-year machinist at work set-up a lathe to make one cut on the otherwise stock .602 restrictor plate making it a true .600 no matter how you measured that devil. WKA tried to bounce us once but we were within the limit of how the rule was written.
The following year the rule was modified to .600 "as punched" from the factory. Not sure if the extra .002 was adding speed but it was fun to see the competition wine about how we were faster because we were cheating (but weren't).
WKA = World Karting Association
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