Your favourite 'cheats' in motorsport

[anonymous-user]

Finchy172 said:

Certain red cars filling their tyres with Carbon Dioxide

Toyota Rally Car restrictor

Body Panel thicknesses to stiffen the chassis

Exhaust Coatings

Glue instead of pop rivets holding honeycomb

Ceramic Wheel Bearings

The only cheat in that list is the Toyota Turbo Restrictor, the rest are normal use methods and have been for eons.

[Jon C]

My favorite is another Drag Racing one.

A very well known (and since his passing a few years ago almost deified) US Top Fuel racer cut his teeth in the Top Alcohol ranks, winning the 'world' championship several times and setting records everywhere he ran.

Capacity checks were routinely carried out, and consisted of a swept capacity check on the front right cylinder, and the figure was then multiplied by 8. Anything over the limit meant disqualification.

It was only when racing at a track with a newly qualified scrutineer, who erroneously measured the front left cylinder instead that the shortened crank lobe and consequently reduced capacity on No. 1 cylinder was noticed...

edited for spelling

Edited by Jon C on Tuesday 24th June 22:07

[egomeister]

johnfelstead said:

Finchy172 said:

Certain red cars filling their tyres with Carbon Dioxide

Toyota Rally Car restrictor

Body Panel thicknesses to stiffen the chassis

Exhaust Coatings

Glue instead of pop rivets holding honeycomb

Ceramic Wheel Bearings

The only cheat in that list is the Toyota Turbo Restrictor, the rest are normal use methods and have been for eons.

Surely that depends on the series that are being referred to?

[anonymous-user]

egomeister said:

johnfelstead said:

Finchy172 said:

Certain red cars filling their tyres with Carbon Dioxide

Toyota Rally Car restrictor

Body Panel thicknesses to stiffen the chassis

Exhaust Coatings

Glue instead of pop rivets holding honeycomb

Ceramic Wheel Bearings

The only cheat in that list is the Toyota Turbo Restrictor, the rest are normal use methods and have been for eons.

Surely that depends on the series that are being referred to?

For some of them, maybe, the poster wasn't specific on that part though, had they been that would have helped as all the things listed apart from the turbo restrictor are standard practice in lots of race series.

The first was more specific and meant Ferrari's use of CO2, there is nothing wrong with that, tyre gas is free.

[mchammer89]

johnfelstead said:

egomeister said:

johnfelstead said:

Finchy172 said:

Certain red cars filling their tyres with Carbon Dioxide

Toyota Rally Car restrictor

Body Panel thicknesses to stiffen the chassis

Exhaust Coatings

Glue instead of pop rivets holding honeycomb

Ceramic Wheel Bearings

The only cheat in that list is the Toyota Turbo Restrictor, the rest are normal use methods and have been for eons.

Surely that depends on the series that are being referred to?

For some of them, maybe, the poster wasn't specific on that part though, had they been that would have helped as all the things listed apart from the turbo restrictor are standard practice in lots of race series.

The first was more specific and meant Ferrari's use of CO2, there is nothing wrong with that, tyre gas is free.

But the big bad red cars did some different to those poor defenseless silver cars so they're a very naughty team.

Anybody else getting bored of this blatant anti-Ferrari bias when there's really no need for it?

[Silent1]

cptsideways said:

The TTE cheating turbo's rather ingenious!!

What actually moved the mechanism though?

Edited by cptsideways on Monday 23 June 18:41

That's brilliant!

[GravelBen]

Jon C said:

Capacity checks were routinely carried out, and consisted of a swept capacity check on the front right cylinder, and the figure was then multiplied by 8. Anything over the limit meant disqualification.

It was only when racing at a track with a newly qualified scrutineer, who erroneously measured the front left cylinder instead that the shortened crank lobe and consequently reduced capacity on No. 1 cylinder was noticed...

Similar to a common trick I've heard about in the NZ V8 tourers - apparently the compression test is always, always on no.1 cylinder.

[The Excession]

Silent1 said:

cptsideways said:

The TTE cheating turbo's rather ingenious!!

What actually moved the mechanism though?

Edited by cptsideways on Monday 23 June 18:41

That's brilliant!

Isn't it just!

I was in the scrutineering tent in Wales the year Solberg took the title.
It was amazing to watch the Subaru mechanics pull his engine to bits in a matter of minutes. Just about every part was checked with calipers or put onto scales. You'd need to be a very smart cookie to get anything past these guys nowadays.

Once they'd finished the whole lot was unceramoniously dumped into crates and chucked into the back of a transit van!

[haggle]

shoestring7 said:

flemke said:

rubystone said:

Isn't it funny how those same three letters keep cropping up on this thread...

R,W, and T?

Hmmm. I wonder what you could mean by that?

On a completely unrelated point; whatever happended to Tom Walkinshaw? At one point he had fingers in F1, touring cars and sports cars, plus JV's with Aston and Holden. Then his business went bust and he seems to have disappeared off the face of the planet.

Did he upset important people?

SS7

we still rent some farm land off him (and im not kidding)

[clicdallara]

Has to be Jonathan Lewis of the Comtec Formula Ford team! Jonathan spent over £100,000 on the Comtec D08 which was based upon the unsuccessful Spirit WL07. He employed experienced ex-Formula Ford Champion Westley Barber and experienced Formula Ford crew. The car had a shakey start at Oulton Park when the rear suspension collapsed. By Knockhill the car was challenging the Jamun Mygales; however at Croft the car was found to be running ceramic wheel bearings which were clearly illegal.

The car ran legal at Brands Hatch and Westley recorded two 2nd places. However the self destruct button had been pushed and Jonathan was sacked from his own team. Brands Hatch was the last time that Westley drove the Comtec and by Spa the team had left the series.

[rubystone]

clicdallara said:

Has to be Jonathan Lewis of the Comtec Formula Ford team! Jonathan spent over £100,000 on the Comtec D08 which was based upon the unsuccessful Spirit WL07. He employed experienced ex-Formula Ford Champion Westley Barber and experienced Formula Ford crew. The car had a shakey start at Oulton Park when the rear suspension collapsed. By Knockhill the car was challenging the Jamun Mygales; however at Croft the car was found to be running ceramic wheel bearings which were clearly illegal.

The car ran legal at Brands Hatch and Westley recorded two 2nd places. However the self destruct button had been pushed and Jonathan was sacked from his own team. Brands Hatch was the last time that Westley drove the Comtec and by Spa the team had left the series.

I hadn't heard that that was the reason why Jonathan left the team. Is Martin Donnelly still with them?

[andygo]

Couldn't imagine that ceramic wheel bearings make that much difference TBH.

[Mannginger]

This thread's great

Can't say I understand what's going on with that Turbo picture though

[DrTre]

Has the Audi DTM cheat been mentioned?

Using a flat plane crankshaft as opposed to the production cross-plane one, claiming it was a standard part...just twisted...

[Chris Isaacs]

Regarding the use of nitrous on the Dodge Pro Stock car mentioned earlier - the Dodge 'works' team was run at the time by the Wayne County Speed Shop organization. They claimed that the flames burping from the hoodscoop on the startline had been caused by a broken distributor shaft.

A few days after their second 'broken distributor shaft' incident in a matter of weeks, it was reported that Wayne County's race shop had been broken into, and various custom blocks, heads, intake manifolds etc. had been smashed beyond repair. There then followed an irregular series of updates in the specialist press detailing the team's efforts to return to competition, including several major setbacks such as fairly catastrophic engine failures during dyno pulls. Eventually, they returned to competition, though running somewhat less competitively than before for some reason...

Presently, someone a tad more cynical than those who dutifully reported on Wayne County's trials and tribulations pointed out that it had been exactly one year since they had last raced. Unofficial opinion is that NHRA had handed Wayne County a year's ban for illegal use of nitrous, but had allowed (or possibly, instructed) them to concoct a cover story, so that Dodge - who were, and still are, one of the biggest sponsors of NHRA drag racing - would not be seen to be associated with cheats.

[Red Firecracker]

Mannginger said:

Can't say I understand what's going on with that Turbo picture though

Here ya go, here's a page explaining the ins and outs;

Toyota TTE's Illegal Turbo

It really was a work of art.

[hostile17]

mchammer89 said:

Anybody else getting bored of this blatant anti-Ferrari bias when there's really no need for it?

Nope.

[Rat_Fink_67]

Chris Isaacs said:

Regarding the use of nitrous on the Dodge Pro Stock car mentioned earlier - the Dodge 'works' team was run at the time by the Wayne County Speed Shop organization. They claimed that the flames burping from the hoodscoop on the startline had been caused by a broken distributor shaft.

A few days after their second 'broken distributor shaft' incident in a matter of weeks, it was reported that Wayne County's race shop had been broken into, and various custom blocks, heads, intake manifolds etc. had been smashed beyond repair. There then followed an irregular series of updates in the specialist press detailing the team's efforts to return to competition, including several major setbacks such as fairly catastrophic engine failures during dyno pulls. Eventually, they returned to competition, though running somewhat less competitively than before for some reason...

Presently, someone a tad more cynical than those who dutifully reported on Wayne County's trials and tribulations pointed out that it had been exactly one year since they had last raced. Unofficial opinion is that NHRA had handed Wayne County a year's ban for illegal use of nitrous, but had allowed (or possibly, instructed) them to concoct a cover story, so that Dodge - who were, and still are, one of the biggest sponsors of NHRA drag racing - would not be seen to be associated with cheats.

To add to this, what made the "break in" even more dubious was that the engine's were the only items damaged. The race cars themselves were untouched, as were the team's rig, tools, equipment etc. There was even a rocket spray painted on the wall to imply that one of the Oldsmobile backed teams had been the culprit lol.

4 years after the incident Mopar lobbied to have the "Hemi" engine allowed as the the wedge headed lumps were never again close to being competitive. The wedge type head configuration was banned for use in Mopar bodied vehicles by the NHRA at the same time as the Hemi was introduced. This was because the "Dodge boys" (now ran by Dale Eicke motorsports) had began to start qualifying again around 97-98 and word around the pits was that they were using GM DRCE engine's with Mopar valve covers fitted....a further exlamation point on the fact that the only way to make the Mopar wedge motors competitive was to add a sniff of laughing gas!

[sniff petrol]

DrTre said:

Has the Audi DTM cheat been mentioned?

Using a flat plane crankshaft as opposed to the production cross-plane one, claiming it was a standard part...just twisted...

Aren't they all restricted to 450bhp in DTM anyway?

[sniff petrol]

Red Firecracker said:

Mannginger said:

Can't say I understand what's going on with that Turbo picture though

Here ya go, here's a page explaining the ins and outs;

Toyota TTE's Illegal Turbo

It really was a work of art.

How did the FIA become aware of it then?