Another icon of the stock car cheating game is ol’ Smokey Yunick. He was one of those people who had a massively creative brain, one that could look at a NASCAR rulebook, find all of the loopholes and then design a car around it.
This car, a 1967 Chevrolet Chevelle, was so stunningly quick that NASCAR officials knew something was up. Because Yunick has become something of a race-car folk hero, you’ve probably heard that this Chevelle was actually built so that it was a 7/8 scale model of the real thing — and because there were no Chevys competing in NASCAR that year, it was hard to spot.
Sadly, that’s not quite true; the Chevelle is the proper size, but it did feature a ton of other modifications that made it special. The front bumper was set back to improve aerodynamics, the glass was replaced by the much lighter Lexan, and the frame rails were allegedly designed to be an auxiliary fuel tank. NASCAR inspected the car before it ever got a chance to race, and it failed tech.
