Wally’s Words

When their favourite colour is ‘grey’…

In early May, I read of the passing of US Stock/NASCAR legend Henry “Smokey” Yunick. Now possibly like me, you’ve never heard of “Smokey” but the designer, builder, team owner and racer is a legend over there – although it’s unlikely he’ll ever be elevated into NASCAR’s Hall of Fame.

Yunick was a colourful character alright but I’m sure Smokey wouldn’t have liked that description as he operated in the “grey” areas of motorsport. He always said he operated within the rules, but it was how he’d bend and stretch those rules that got him his reputation and raised the ire of racing officials.

One example: it was mandated that fuel tanks could only hold 11 gallons (about 41.5 litres) but there were no rules about petrol temperatures. Smokey would chill the fuel just before the race to a bit above freezing, meaning he could actually get more than 11 gallons in the tank, therefore extending the distance until a pit stop. Within the rules yes – but not in the spirit of the rules which were subsequently changed to include a minimum temperature.

When the 11-gallon regulation came in Smokey complied – but ran a two-inch diameter fuel line that was 11 feet (3-plus metres) long… which translated to almost 19 more litres of fuel in the system! Naturally, the rules were again changed.

Yunick obviously thought long, hard and often about rules relating to fuel. Another of his attempts to fool the fuel officials involved a fuel tank, compressed air and... a basketball! Seems Smokey somehow got a basketball inside a gas tank and had the ability to inflate or deflate the ball as required. A certain amount of air and the tank held its 11-gallon maximum to pass scrutineering, and then ‘ole Smoke would let the air out then add another gallon of gas or two!

There are heaps more tales of Smokey’s derring-do, so do yourself a favour and google him. You’ll be fascinated by the clever brain of the man.

When I read of Smokey it got me thinking about our “brainiacs” here in OZ racing. Who are the guys that know the ins-and-outs of the rule books and make the most of them?

There are quite a few, but one that instantly sprang to mind is Larry Perkins. LP was well versed in the rules and regulations of the Supercar category as well as the Confederation

of Australian Motorsport (CAMS) judiciary rules. If you hauled Larry in front of the Stewards or a CAMS hearing, LP usually was successful, as opposed to us at HRT who were usually found guilty and ned heavily. There was even one stage where Skaifey or Jeff Grech suggested Mr Perkins should be our advocate at a hearing, such was his success rate!

Larry’s outside-the-box thinking came to the fore in 1996 when the Holden Commodore teams were using the VR model. At HRT Craig Lowndes was running rampant, and the Ford teams were having a sook about the Commodore having an aero advantage. At the same time as LP was building a new VR in time for the Sandown/Bathurst enduro series, CAMS ruled that 125mm was to be lopped off the undertray of the front bar of the VR Commodore to “balance” up the downforce between the two manufacturers.

It was a “not happy Jan” moment for Larry. But in typical Larry fashion, rather than just suck it up and move on like the other teams, Perkins worked out that he wouldn’t lose any downforce if he converted the new car to VP specs – and that’s exactly what he did. While there was the odd complaint or two, LP won the ght and the car raced for the remainder of the year as a VP. Whether it worked or not is a moot point, because Larry had bad run that year at Bathurst, which was won by HRT with the Craig Lowndes/ Greg Murphy VR Commodore.

As is well known, my old team owner Tom Walkinshaw was a dab-hand at a bit of rule twisting as well. Like LP, he knew what the rules were and would happily protest another team or teams (as he did at Bathurst in 1988) plus he would also “explore” opportunities in the regulations in the cars he raced. In that 1988 Bathurst event there were two “Special Vehicles” VL Commodores – one built by LP and one built by TWR back in the UK. Tom’s “pommy” version appeared to have a very dubious rear-end set up and, it failed after a handful of laps.

Fast forward a few years and Tom was Technical Director for the Benetton F1 Team. The 1994 F1 season must have been one of the most controversial years in history, and Benetton was right in the thick of it. Electronic aids such as Traction Control, Launch Control and ABS had been banned from that year, and Benetton was one of a handful of teams that had ngers pointed at them.

Other accusations included the under oor “plank” showing excessive wear, suggesting the car was too low as well as having illegal fuel lling methods. Despite all this, Michael Schumacher and Benetton won the World Championship in ’94.

Same year, different country, same team owner but a different category. At HRT we had a “grey” man too – and not just in hair colour! Ron Harrop was our Consulting Engineer when I rst started in ’94, and as I was a PR “og,” there was not a great deal of connect between the technical side of the business and the public side.

Ron was your typical “outside the box” engineer that had grown up in the ‘50s. Don’t tell them they can’t do something – just ask them how to achieve it. Back then in endurance races it wasn’t compulsory to make a pit stop, it was a necessity. Ron – along with our brake-pad partners of the time – worked out if you could delete a pad change at Bathurst, you’d save a lot of time.

A really thick brake pad and Ron’s creation of a special calliper and locking clip allowed HRT to not have a pad change at Bathurst. Of course – like Smokey Yunick – the rules were later changed to make a pad change compulsory!

On Thursday at Bathurst that year (1994) all hell broke loose when the #05 car was protested against after the second practice session – and a number of HRT people from that time still believe it was LP who red in the protest, probably because he didn’t think of the “hack” rst!

It seems the mounting points at the top of the front struts were found to be the problem; an adjustment had been made to the mounting points’ location which allowed the HRT car to sit lower on the road. The senior members of the press corps were howling for blood and the other team bosses were trying to have HRT booted out of the race meeting. Holden was not best pleased and it was absolute mayhem.

Being a “newbie,” I didn’t appreciate the level of “revenge” that was being anticipated by the team owners and some of the media blokes who saw an opportunity to give Tom Walkinshaw a smashing after he’d thrown protests around like confetti in 1988. Muggins here didn’t know which way was up!

Things settled down to a point where Jeff Grech gave me a rough outline of what the problem was and suggested I talk to Ron Harrop about it, as it was his idea. Ron explained that – according to the regulations – the (McPherson strut) front suspension top locating point could be moved within a radius of 20mm! Now in Ron’s – and a number of others within the team’s – mind, a radius could be interpreted as being within a 360-degree sphere or plane, and so he had had the engineers RAISE the front strut top mounts by 18mm – effectively lowering the car by that much, which would lower the car’s centre of gravity and make it handle better etc.

At the resultant Stewards’ Hearing, their interpretation of the rules led them to determine that a radius was in fact in a horizontal plane, and so the HRT car wasn’t legal. Our counter argument was that the rules didn’t speci cally state that, so in our mind the car WAS legal.

Tom Walkinshaw was just getting off a plane in Sydney from the UK and stepped right into a shit-storm. To this day I still don’t know the insand-out-of-the-duck’s-guts but I did hear that Tom – always one to appreciate a bit of “grey” area creativity! – wanted to put an injunction over the whole Bathurst race because, in his view, Ron’s hack was a righteous idea.

In the end, I think Holden stepped in and suggested everyone pull their collective heads in; HRT had to change the front strut locating points back to “normal” again and had its Thursday practice times deleted and life went on as if nothing had happened from the Friday.

But while race officials hate them – and the team blokes who wished they’d thought of it rst mumble, grumble and protest in the corner – the “grey” areas of the sport and the blokes who have the imagination, creativity, knowledge and brains to think outside the box should always be encouraged.

So here’s to the likes of Ron Harrop, Tom Walkinshaw, Larry Perkins… and vale Henry “Smokey” Yunick.