Cheating: An Inside Look at the Bad Things Good NASCAR Winston Cup Racers Do in Pursuit of Speed [Hardcover]

Tom Jensen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 27, 2002

In this first comprehensive history of cheating in NASCAR Winston Cup racing, drivers, crew chiefs, and team owners openly discuss how they have worked around, bent, and outright broken the rules. Top NASCAR officials are equally candid as they describe their efforts to police and punish those infractions. Now the politics and subterfuge in the garage area has become as intriguing as 7/8ths-size cars and other ingenious examples of cheating. Covers from 1949-2002.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Tom Jensen is former executive editor of Winston Cup Scene

Product Details

• Hardcover: 250 pages
• Publisher: David Bull Pub (September 27, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1893618226
• ISBN-13: 978-1893618220
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,027,975 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing Look At Illegalities Within NASCAR, December 14, 2002

By 

Michael Daly "Monkeesfan" (Wakefield, MA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cheating: An Inside Look at the Bad Things Good NASCAR Winston Cup Racers Do in Pursuit of Speed (Hardcover)

Tom Jensen authors this overdue look at the "black art" of cheating in NASCAR, and along the way manages a decent job of seperating fact from fiction. He delves into the acts of cheating in the sport from its beginnings (when apparant Grand National winner Glenn Dunaway was disqualified and the race win went to Jim Roper) through the 1990s into the 21st century.

Three cheating scandals stand out here, and all three involve teams owned by Junior Johnson. If there is a theme to this book, it is that Junior Johnson was the sport's most dishonest team owner. The first was the 1973 National 500 at Charlotte. Cale Yarborough won the race, but his car and second-place Richard Petty were protested by Bobby Allison. An extremely long tear-down took place, and NASCAR ultimately said the race results would stand - which led Allison to file a lawsuit against NASCAR, because there was evidence that Cale's Chevrolet, wrenched by Johnson, ran some 70 cubic inches more than allowed by the rules.

If there is an eye-opener in this book, it is the admission by Junior's engine builder at the time, Robert Yates, that that particular engine and others built for Junior were indeed illegal; Yates states it measured 500 CID, versus the 431 limit of the time. Actually, though, Yates' admission isn't a surprise, as former crew chief J.C. "Jake" Elder stated in several 1990s interviews that Junior's crew chief Herb Nab acknowledged to him that Junior usually ran illegal displacement in his engines.

The second involves the infamous "Pettygate" Charlotte race of 1983. Jensen doesn't delve into any new ground here, which is a shortfall, because there was more to that scandal than is usually acknowledged. Petty's team had won twice in 1983 but had struggled against Johnson and also the DiGard Racing team headed by Gary Nelson (and powered by Yates) in horsepower (Jensen deals at insufficient length with cheating by Gary Nelson with DiGard and other teams elsewhere in the book), and Maurice Petty built (and readily acknowledged after the race) a 381 CID engine. What is underappreciated is that Petty beat Junior's driver Darrell Waltrip - because Waltrip backed off in Turn Two and let Petty take a big lead. There was speculation then and later that Waltrip was also running more CID than allowed, and given Yates' and Herb Nab's admissions there is no reason not to believe that Waltrip usually ran illegal displacement.

It is a shame because it tarnishes the accomplishments of Waltrip (a great driver despite also being overrated as such) and also Cale Yarborough (a superior driver incapable of being overrated), who won the majority of his races (55 of 83 career wins) and all three of his titles in Johnson racecars. It also puts a period to NASCAR's long-running practice of being more nitpicky to certain teams over others (notably Johnson's), notably Petty Enterprises, Wood Brothers Racing, Ranier Racing, Bill Elliott's racing team, Hoss Ellington Racing (whose owner cheated mostly for fun and readily admitted such), and (somewhat ironic given how much success they enjoyed) DiGard Racing (one of the most revealing such episodes involved Bumpergate at Daytona in 1982; NASCAR made Gary Nelson lower the rear bumper on the DiGard car to increase drag; Nelson angrilly had it slapped on with insecure fasteners to fall off on the track; he denies that he had it deliberately slapped on to fall off during a race, but there is no reason to believe him); this nitpickery practice does continue today, though at a far less blatant level.

Another who got a lot more than his fair share of NASCAR nitpickery was Harry Hyde, whose cars won the 1970 title with Bobby Isaac and whose cars were regularly torn down more thoroughly than most, such as in the scandal-plagued '73 National 500; Hyde's car was torn down four times during the weekend and when NASCAR demanded another teardown, he refused and was disqualified. Hyde also got swept into the Nitrousgate scandal of 1976; after Daytona 500 qualifying his Dodge was found with a moveable flap on the radiator, which allowed air to flow more efficiently and increase aero slickness; the flap met the letter of NASCAR's rulebook but amid the discovery of speed-enhancing nitrous oxide bottles on several cars, NASCAR ruled it didn't meet the spirit.

Nitpickery shows in a recent area dealt with by Jensen - the "Tiregate" New Hampshire 300 of late August 1998. On final stops with some 73 laps to go Jeff Gordon took two tires to the four taken by Mark Martin, John Andretti, and others (this was when tires were much softer and wore more easily than in 2001-2, when Goodyear went with compounds of such hardness that wear became almost impossible); under such circumstances Gordon should have been swamped by cars with four fresh tires, but instead he outpulled the cars on four fresh tires and easily won a race he had not run all that competitively in throughout that day.

Jensen details the inaccuracy of claims by Jack Roush of chemical treatment of tires by Ray Evernham, but ignores that this was a red herring to begin with - the real issue being Goodyear playing favorites on tires, a practice angrilly noted a year later by team owner Andy Petree in a spat over lack of access to Goodyear tires for much-needed test sessions, and also briefly discussed by Geoff Bodine in Shaun Assael's superb NASCAR book "Wide Open: Days & Nights On The NASCAR Trail."

The third big scandal discussed in the book was Jimmy Spencer's two restrictor plate victories of 1994; once again, we have a cheating scandal involving Junior Johnson racecars. In fairness to Spencer, comments about his ability by Jeff Gordon's stepdad John Bickford (made in naturally fawning comparison to Gordon's ability) are a little out of line, as Spencer had shown superb drafting ability years earlier in Travis Carter's Chevrolet and showed it again in Dick Moroso's Grand National Ford, Travis Carter's Winston-sponsored Fords, and James Finch's Grand National Pontiacs.

Regardless, it should be clear that Spencer's two Winston Cup wins were achieved with an illegal restrictor plate manifold; that it could have escaped NASCAR pre-race inspection is not as difficult as Jensen implies at points, given the ingenuity of raceteams.

One area where Jensen could have set the record straight but does not even discuss is suspicion about the 1984 Firecracker 400. During "The Call" mini-controversy of 1995 there was some question about the legality of Richard Petty's 200th win, about how the engine supposedly was over the limit on displacement. There ought to be no question about the legality of that win or all but one or two other Petty wins, given how NASCAR scrutinized his cars more than most, how Petty did not show more horsepower than race favorite Cale Yarborough (Petty won on superior handling and the car's better drafting ability; Cale's Ranier Chevrolets of the time were noticably inferior in handling than Petty's Pontiacs or Bobby Allison's Buicks), and also how the Pettys had feuded with NASCAR's France family almost from the beginning, making claims of a "Call" going to him implausible. Jensen likewise should have noted that in the '73 controversy Petty readily admitted running a mixture of engine cylinders of varying displacements - a few over the legal limit, several well under it, for an average within the rules. As Bobby Allison himself noted during the Pettygate scandal, "Richard shoots straighter than most."

In all, though, the book is worth having for providing information on a "black art" in NASCAR racing. Jensen provides a look at the psychology of cheating when he notes Darrell Waltrip's infamous 1976 quip, "If you don't cheat, you look like an idiot; if you cheat and don't get caught, you look like a hero; if you cheat and get caught, you look like a dope."

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting even for people who aren't NASCAR fans, December 16, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Cheating: An Inside Look at the Bad Things Good NASCAR Winston Cup Racers Do in Pursuit of Speed (Hardcover)

I thought the book was fascinating, even though I know little about cars and even less about NASCAR. It details how drivers, mechanics, and/or team owners have either attempted to skirt the NASCAR rules or even thumbed their noses at NASCAR officials, all to get a slight competitive edge on the rest of the racing field, and the book spans from the humble beginnings of NASCAR to the present-day sports juggernaut that NASCAR has become. Jensen's writing style is such that even those who do not have a great understanding of automobile mechanics can visualize just what alterations are being made to the vehicles, and he is consistent in explaining clearly just what advantage those alterations might give the drivers. To see the book solely as a history of how NASCAR participants have attempted to get a couple of extra miles per hour, miles per gallon, or laps on a set of tires does not do the work justice, though. It is also a case-study in risk-taking behavior as the book's subjects can be seen and heard, in their own words, weighing the benefits of winning versus the consequences of getting caught playing outside the rules and existing in the political arena which governs both. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys competition.

4.0 out of 5 stars NASCAR Tech Amazingly Poor!, December 23, 2010

By 

David G. Mclain (Cuba, MO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Cheating: An Inside Look at the Bad Things Good NASCAR Winston Cup Racers Do in Pursuit of Speed (Hardcover)

This book was an enjoyable read but what I found to be amazingly obvious from all of the stories that it contains was that NASCAR's tech department was awful for a very long time. How come it took them so long to figure out that they needed to weigh the cars AFTER the race? Could they really have been that stupid? It didn't take any serious effort to get anything past them for ages. How could they not find an oversized engine or fuel cell after the race?

Overall it's an entertaining read and worth reading because some of the stories are quite entertaining.