Quote:
Originally Posted by engatwork
Don't want to get on a tangent but a few years ago we (me and the youngest son) went to Daytona during the Turkey Rod Run. I was reading the newspaper that morning and noticed that they were have a garage sale at Smokey's shop (this was after he had died). It was open to the public so me and the son went and there was some really interesting stuff there. I have attached a couple pics that I took. One is the rear section of an Indy car on a rack with some engines. The other is a v10 Mercedes diesel engine. There were some engines on the shelf that he had built, run in one race and then put back on the shelf. It was neat being able to go through "The Best Damn Garage in Town".
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I have Smokey's book. It is a wonderful entertaining read. I am pretty sure he was a real innovator but all those guys back in the late fifties and sixties were getting help under the table and out the back door of GM Ford and who knows what so it is very tough to tell what he did and what they did. I bet some stuff went inexpensively at his sale. He also wrote for a racing mag for a while....circle track? His thoughts were always interesting and fun to read.
After his racing years he spent time designing things like drilling equipment for oil. He also spent some time in the jungles of South America drilling for Oil and I cannot remember what all. I guess I will have to get his book out and read it again......
My favorite Smokey story is from about 1970 involving that black and Gold Chevelle.....he showed up at Daytona with this Chevelle with a 405 or so CI Rat motor. His driver may have been Curtis Turner. The car ran full fenders in the back which shrouded the fat tires but made the car slicker. The other teams compained about the fenders not being cut out, knowing it would be an adavntage. Smokey got out the rule book and read it...it said the teams "
may" cut the fenders out to ease tire changing.
It did not say they were required to. They were allowed to run them.
They qualified on the pole.
Next, on race morning they pulled out the 405 engine and installed a 454 and cut out the fender wells so they could change the tires in the race. The other teams complained about not running the fenders the way they had in qualifying. Smokey got out the rule book and read it again. "It says we
May cut the fenders out but
it does not say When we have to do it".
That Chevelle was narrowed about 6" too.
He was a genuine original.
He also built a camaro to run in trans am which had a whole bunch of innovative (illegal) things to make it lighter and lower. That car is around now and is being campaigned on the historic racing circuits.
He was famous for being protested for having an illegal gas tank which was thought to be too big. The story goes that the inspectors took off his tank and tested it and found it legal then Smokey got angry with them and drove his car off to the pits with no tank at all suggesing he had fuel hidden in the frame or roll bar.
I love his stories....all told in colorful detail no expletives deleted in his book.