"Creativity" in the garage

[FS_Amy]

OK, in the last couple of weeks, I've shared some examples of how teams have, uh...worked the grey area...in That's History

Anyone have any favorite stories/examples of "creative engineering" to share?

Don't be shy!

[Chris]

I've alwasy felt sorry for Mark Martin because I felt he was "Cheated" out of  a NASCAR CUP championship he deserved... Dale Earnhardt was Nascar's "Favorite" so they catered to him,.. so as things worked out the championship went to him.

The points that was deducted from Martin was pretty bogus,... MAINLY because the penalty was over whether this part was "Bolted" on verses "welded" on.  This was something new and up until this point "bolted" had always been perfectly fine.  Out of the blue,.. NAscar decided Martin's Car was illegal...
If there had be ANY performance advantage ,... You could some type of penalty being levied,.. but when NO advantage at ALL is gained,... just makes you know NASCAR was wanted a "Certain" person to win the championship.  (Of course one drove a Ford and the other a Chevy... Nascar always HAS been Pro-Chevy for those people that have just picked up on the sport in the last several years.
Here's the story

A crew chief from 1985 through 2001, Pemberton holds the distinction of
being the most monetarily penalized mechanic in NASCAR history. On the list of NASCAR's top-ten biggest fines, Pemberton shows up three times for a total of $85,000.

The biggest of those penalties came in 1990, when a carburetor spacer plate was found in Mark Martin's car following a win at Richmond in late February. The dime part cost Pemberton forty large.

The team was also docked 46 points, which hurt more than a little when Martin ended up losing the championship to Dale Earnhardt by only 26 points in November.

[Chris]

I found this I thought was pretty cute...
Sorry if you already told it in your series...  It's about SMokey Yunick

The only thing that Yunick did better than bend the rules was use cuss words. 
A high school dropout, the Daytona Beach resident possessed one of the most brilliant automotive minds of the 20th century, and he never hesitated from using it to his advantage on Sunday afternoons.
In his three-volume autobiography published shortly after his death in 2001, he even addressed what he believed was cheating and what was not.  In the volume dedicated to NASCAR, entitled "All Right You Sons-a-Bitches, Let's Have a Race",  he estimates that by 1970, over half of the NASCAR rule book was dedicated solely to him. 
He is also quick to point this out as one of the great accomplishments of his life.
Once during a pre race inspection, NASCAR told Yunick that his car was in violation of 10 rules.  In the inspector’s hand was the car’s fuel cell. 
Yunick got in the car and told him “make that 11.”  He then drove the car with no fuel cell!
Operating in the gray areas of the rulebook, Yunick says, is not cheating.  However, there are four things that he considers "real cheating":
1. Using a big engine.
2. Using a big gas tank.
3. Using expensive exotic materials to save weight.
4. Very expensive aerodynamic rule violations.
"Now, three and four," he wrote. "I consider more 'chicken s--t' than cheating... Big engines and big gas tanks, I have no mental tolerance for. What brains does that take?"