The Scene Vault Podcast Storytellers -- Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Cheating in NASCAR

all right so David you were Daryl Waltrip's crew chief at die guard and you can't talk about those years without mentioning Bertha what made that car so special or inFAMOUS whichever way you want to put it back and we probably had cars like that everywhere but Daryl start naming these cars you know he was I think the first one that started naming cars you would race on a Sunday at Richmond and then maybe Darlington you had to sign in Thursday morning at Darlington we'd use the same car there was none of this taking it all apart blasting it and all this stuff you'd go home chain pull the motor one guy'd be packing the hubs checking the brakes all out changing gear change the gear we'd never take the spindles we'd run ball joints five eight races unless we bumped the wall or something and that but now these cars now there's ball joints of them big steel cups but uh he named that car because we run it back then it was I think 24 26 races and we run that thing 20 22 times the only place we didn't run it was Talladega and Daytona and run that car everywhere I think I have the fender to that car at my house the front fender the Bertha I think is it do you know yeah so a picture of it I think that'd look good in the studio well I may as well bring it here it's laying in the garage talking about Bertha why was the Bertha ran like 20 more laps of Poconos than anybody did that one year I don't know though they had they used to have scores if you remember they didn't have the lines going across the trunk transport they both have a lot of fuel line in it yeah one time for some reason it how we got caught we need details on birth yeah I noticed that you didn't answer my question yeah what what made that car special there was a lot of cheating on it am I allowed to say that I never forget we sold that card that had the nitrous in it that's your Talladega that was a Daytona yeah that was it that was Daryl Daytona that was a different car Bertha didn't have nights yeah so I got the truth out right yeah with that card you know everybody they there was four car three cars that qualified about half a second faster than anybody else at Daytona and this was 1974-75 there was it was uh AJ Ford's car Harry Hyde's car the Marcus was in it I think AJ was in Hutch's car and our card a Gatorade car we happened to be third in Ramo stock was fourth so they took the first four and they caught the AJ and Hutch right away they had it in the door panel nitrous you got to have a bottle and a solenoid they caught his right away Harry was a good deal he had his in the radiator the big thick radio which everybody blocks well everybody run a big radio yeah big dick right here where the bottle was in the radiator and then after qualifying everybody's changing their Motors and changing it changed radiators put the racer here nobody knew it but they caught him with wherever the line was going into the manifold they checked that well they didn't they couldn't catch ours we had to give it up art tell them where it was it was on the bar going down the deal I made it got some hydraulic tubing and the row bar Daryl could reach over and turn that it had a little like a off and on one of them lever valves he could reach the robar pad and covered that and he he could reach over and turn it now it went to the into to the it didn't go the intake because I didn't want no air filter didn't it went to the air filter underneath we cut the air filter out where the throttle linkage like it had to be cut out to clear in the water temperature gauge we I took I didn't do all this stuff we Savannah down in Savannah Gulf Stream was down there and they had the most modern technology in them remember them guys used to come over to shop they had the most modern technology she said I would talk to them about making something and he said I could make something you know so I took we took the water temperature line to come out of the firewall and it went down in the intake we put a slit in it and this guy made the the switch the gauge itself he had a micro switch in it and all you did was reach the dash and turn the front part of the gauge and it would kick that open the throttle it would kicked that solenoid on in that row bar and the gas too and shot into the right into the air cleaner underneath and and they never did catch it and and finally they weren't they made it so hard of us after somebody's qualifying we never got on the track they made a stare at that car all apart in the evenings at night after the five to ten and throw us out then we come in the next morning I had to put it all back together and by that time practice was over now this was Wednesday Bill France Jr come and he said David we know you got it where's it at if you want to race Sunday you better be telling us Bill Gardner he comes me can they find it I said it's been three days they ain't found it yet and he's he said I'm going to sue him you know [Music] I said that's the worst thing ever do you ever want to race again yeah I told him I said you want to race again they own the basketball that's right and I said just let them have it he said well what are they going to find I said they didn't find people back then they just slapped your hand and it made it hard on you but well I told him where that even Bill France say that's the most genius thing I've ever seen in my life but didn't Daryl have one on him that was later did you get did you get fined no no so really they just confiscated it they just confiscated everything and we had big stuff back in all they did was take it from you just took it like the fuel cell that big fuel cell we had and stuff now how prep how prevalent was noctris in the garage oh it sounds like everybody had it do you remember one thing they had it you've never heard how many times he had it just so he could get into right in the race yeah when you if you ever in the engine man would know this you could be running a motor on a Dyno and just take a bottle and hold it here to that right there the carburetor and that you'd see them RPMs go up and the horsepower go up that's how it's cooling the fuel that's all it is it's cooling the fuel nitrous oxide that drag racers use it all the time and everything and it was only for really for qualifying nobody really raced because you couldn't put a big enough bottle in there to yeah it's just a bottle would last that pipe we figured out it lasts like 30 seconds 32 seconds because we tested it that row bar deal down there well the lap was 50 49 40 something 49 48 something back then well it helped you when you went by the start Finish Line you could do all that in that little short shoot and then you had it going down that back straight away and that's where NASCAR was smart because they clocked everybody's speed down that well they clocked you from corner to corner in the flat you know so they had everybody's straight away speeds from this line to this line and you know and somebody's four tenths quicker going down three cards were like four tenths five tenths quicker down that back straightaway we picked up seven tenths at Daytona once yeah eight tenths and when I just say it was Arab huh now they just say it so yeah yeah now when when you triggered it did you did they trigger the whole the whole bottle the whole Supply or could you yeah it was gone okay once you was done qualifying it they couldn't sniff it any after that yeah it was gone so you could you couldn't just squirt a little bit no and then okay you you could if you had a switch but I mean even a drag races right now when they turn it on it's on it's gone then they reload with new bottles if you try to have a switch they are going to catch you you just have a lever to turn it on and that's it and that's how they caught Harry Hyde and and Hutch they had the lines going into the manifold you know what I mean it it's too obvious it's too obvious you got two what do you got going in the manifold heat temperature line and that's it yeah the oil line comes off the block to check the oil pressure you know that that's the only thing and let me tell you what this is basically Vapor yeah Vapor the Kodak car set on a pole a lot down well they had they had a lot in their rear end houses yeah and they pumped it from the rear end house and the four cars went through the went through the pump the rear end pump yeah through the pump now you're talking about in the Sterling Marlin runt pitch when they run so good at Dayton Talladega when Ernie could when Sterling and Ernie could pull out and pass four cars and if you watch the show the races he never done it till the end of the race that's always been the story around town you know and I know we got a guy here who works with me here and he worked on that four car so he it's pretty much now I want to get back to the the DW having the the nitrous on on him in his suit he didn't have the bottle on him he had to hook up on him okay he how did that work well he had the stuff in on his uniform and then and he would you could hook it up you know what I mean like a quick coupler yeah and it was the same deal we had it in a different bar though yeah but I always thought I remember you tell you know they wanted them private conversations you tell me he had it on him so I remember that was it he didn't have well we put it had a he he had everything on him the solenoid and everything yeah you know what I mean all he had to do was plug it into the barn yeah he just plugged in so he had the bottle he had the bottle but we only now who had the by that was Daryl I thought he had the bottle honestly under his uniform or something we tried that you know you had to have what it was we've done that couple times it was a little thin but it you didn't have enough to yeah get you enough to sniff the flag into the you was out you know you could you got to have a bottle there's so much and the size of the orifices too you know I haven't done this in a long time this nitrous stuff yeah but uh I'll tell you the best they're not doing qualifying cheating thing I ever seen in my life and we never done it I'll take that back we did a couple times but these guys are Gulf Stream was down there Cale Yarbrough coming to drive for us and back when we go when you went testing it's in the 27 car in the 27 car Valvoline car when you went testing you would take them put your light your beam across the racetrack and they didn't have no computers to show all the times and everything you would put your light across and then you would test and do changes and that light would do the time and it would print it out the data acquisition what they called a back pain you had more on the car the stopwatches were your thumbs were just not accurate enough yeah weren't accurate everybody they were pretty damn close yeah we used to sit on pit one bet who would be the closest one they announced it for a dollar herb nap Bud more Jake Harry Hyde all of us would sit there clock and qualify because he'd be closest got the pot every car so I mean if you was good you could make about 10 15 dollars so what what'd they do on this one I told him I said this guy from Gulfstream he was a engineer or something John he come by the shop all the time we got to be pretty good friends with him and he said what breaks that beam where is the bee man I said well you got this there's a light beam I guess you can't you can't see it but watch and we said it and I said you move it and he said what breaks that beam I said when the car hits it you know the car hit sort of breaks the beam never heard no more about a week later he comes to me says you want to break that beam before the car gets there and I said hi how the hell are you going to do that and uh he said I'm gonna work do you will you do it and I said yeah but if I can't you know walk out there and break it you could put your hand in front of it and break the beam he took a camera and put a thing in the camera I don't know what the hell it was and you could stand back on pit one aim it toward the beam on that so NASCAR had it for qualifying they had the same rig come back in your spot they had it for qualifying the same rig he would take that camera and when we went and tested and he when kale was probably 30 yards 40 yards ahead of that he hit it and it break that beam and give you a 10 two tenths quicker which is two football fields at Daytona today and we got the only guys that knew about it was me Pete Peterson yeah and ducky Newman I didn't know about that no you didn't know but I was married to nobody I was just a kid hanging out then no nobody knew about it but Barry or toucan or nothing Kayla know about it no killed it yeah we was going to use it at Rockingham and ducky he's he's going to take a picture like he's taking a picture he was so nervous as ducky Newman the engine builder he was so nervous he never clicked The Damp he never clicked it and you know we we happened to sit on the pole anyway we didn't need it but yeah smoked him at Rockingham that day yeah we and it broke a valve spring or something remember it was wearing them out yeah yeah ducky was you'd go in the engine shop and ducky would be he'd just have a head up there sighting it you know that's how Hands-On he was with uh and he we only you know back now they got 20 guys what they had ducky and little Rosa so the next the next year that's when I became the full-time weekend guy doing the tires when you left and Tim Brewer was there and we went to Talladega and we slotted the spoiler on the back of Kale's car is the 27 Valvoline produce carve worked on but you know you put a big big on the spoiler a big piece of metal across the back well everybody slotted their spoiler in the middle yeah and you had a four and a half inch spoiler so we slided the spoiler and made made our own washers you couldn't buy them as big as the slot was well we went through inspection and uh they measured spoiler four and a half inches we're going to the gas pumps me and Barry and Ed threaten Pete we're pushing the car Pete's driving it and we're pushing we're all got quarter inch Drive ratchets and we're undoing that's forward sliding it up so we got a whole nother inch of spoiler on that car and before we get to the gas pump uh gas away the the younger one come over he said stop that car Joe said stop that car and we stopped he said take one of them bolts out of the back of that spoiler right there well I happen to have a quarter inch Drive here's everybody coming by laughing face we took a bolt out I took it out just what I thought he saw the slot somebody so I was this 18 year old kid and on the on the team he looked at me he said boy you go get me a drill and 3 16 drill bit and some extension cords and pop riffs and you get back here now man I took off running and Brewing everybody's laughing at us and we think the Petty's told on us that's what they said so we drilled that back of that car full of and pop rivets all in where you couldn't move it you couldn't move it he said if y'all ever do this again none of you will race you got that Burr you got that threat you know yes sir yes sir Mr gather away so we go on the gas pumps put that car on the line bad thing is they never re-measured itches we raced from five and a half inches of spoilers not according to the podcast you were on Bob well I learned lot from when a certain guy I worked for Jake Jr bail Inman dale dale and them he called it uh stretching the rules would you talk about Bill we didn't call it cheating nobody gave it no like you said somebody squealed on you with that yeah if I seen something I didn't have to we did it ourselves we would do it we wouldn't tell on nobody no but if I wanted some I seen someone another car that I wanted to know that it was wrong all I had to do was go tell Jake elder or Dale Edmond yeah Dale Inman Dale Edmond I tell him first and you could walk away and everything and you could watch him it'd be five minutes there he goes a NASCAR trailer he going over there to tell you know what Harry Hines does you know when when when Daryl won the first Winston All-Star and hand grenaded the motor right after the line Dale in the walk by me and grab mom he said go tell him to check go tell him to check the gas cans go tell him gas cans you know I'm like what's he telling me before you know you know you know it was working for Dale he uh he never did really do any of the obvious yeah he never would do the obvious stuff but he uh he was too busy we did in everybody's arm but we did 10 obvious things so they would catch him so we could get by with the things that we wanted to get probably the worst though for me you and I forgot who else maybe bearing I'd have rather cheated and won the race than go legal then don't do anything and run 12. yeah Jacob's our crew chief everybody was doing it against you yeah you have to do it yeah but we go to Texas we're selling pole with Terry remember yeah well that night although you told him that it wasn't no way we could run with that kind of setup in that car I think you ran on that deal I know who it was yeah and they all convinced Jake that that was just the wrong setup for the race we go in Sunday morning Jake changes everything on oh he was great for that I mean he dirt and screens and listened to him yeah we had to have cigarettes if you get out there on the track we're riding around make sure the green flag Terry goes into one spins out we went to remember the old Milwaukee car and with first year we got Tim Richmond our second year when Barry became the crew chief so we tested down there and we stretched the nose out on that Pontiac and I mean we stretched it out like it's three or four inches but boy that thing was hooked up well the problem was you remember they had three four templates the long template your two-door templates and your nose and tail so the nose fit well the long template when you did the long template it had a notch on the front to go over the front of the well the front end our front end was out here and the notch it just set up on the car but if so we we developed a plan so we sent Red Dog and Todd remember back in the day when you had to make your own templates off of NASCARs so yeah you'd take a piece of plywood to the racetrack yeah you take plywood or construction paper then you come back and Trace out aluminum and you had to make your own templates yeah they didn't give them to yourself so we sent Red Dog buddy Barnes and Todd Parrott over to the NASCAR Center to trace the template all right when they got there they've had Snips in their pocket Wheels gonna have to cut the notch off the front of that template this is true so cut it off at NASCAR where's gonna have to go off a NASCAR's template we was not going to get this car through with that Notch that came over the nose so when red dog got there he stopped and called he said I'm getting ready to go inside well when he went inside they went back there and uh the the flag mount Harold Kinder was working he's come on back here and Harold was watching them Trace trace it out trace the template and they had to trace the whole thing because it's all a ruse so Judy Tucker was our secretary she called and said I need to speak to Harold Kinder so they called Harold kinder to the fold which left Red Dog and Todd all by themselves of that template and they it was eighth inch so they had they cut the nose they cut the notch off in front of the NASCAR template when we got to Daytona now remember the template would go on the nose and no Pontiac there fitted but ours you know but that I remember when it went through the corner Dale lemon said that car right there is hooked up and we cut that template NASCAR template and they run it the rest of the year that thing was you know because we had a long car and Tim went in the corner and that car inverted it got up in the air and we wrecked it and didn't get to race it but we cut the NASCAR template and they run it the whole season yeah true story no one I couldn't win no races now David when you and Daryl were together the the most well-known story that I think I've heard him tell is about The Buckshot and yelling bombs away and all that kind of thing did you have a code word on the radio or did he do that on his own when we got caught the code work didn't work he was supposed to pull we had a pin in the frame rail we pull it up and it go out the bottom fall out the bottom on the racetrack did it during caution yeah but when he when we pit it a lot of it didn't come out on the conscience he should have pulled it after the he came out come out on Pit Road and a big pile of it there and I mean we're caught Fisher Trail that's kind of a clue oh yeah but if it left a trail on the racetrack it had been different but it left the trail from our pits going out to Racetrack and and then we were caught right in that was at Bristol that was at Wilkesboro Wilkesboro with Daryl with Daryl how many times did you use it it's hard for me to remember maybe it's easier how many times did you not yet what what another thing I was stupid now we were we had a gas tank that they they didn't tear them out and measure them or anything then they just stuck a rule down in the side of it pulled it over okay you 20 by what were they say wait no way it could be cheated up you you hit all the measurements yeah you hit all the measurements how it could be cheated up well they used to put the cards up in the trailer at night well the rat was Square Tubing flat bolted down they amazing to me but we had a gas tank made like take a gas tank over gas tank and then in a big bladder when you filled it the top would come up it held 26 gallons it was just sitting over the bottom so it just slid up just the bladder pushed it up because we had a special bladder mate well at night when we put the car away put a different rack on that we put a different rack that had pegs on it yeah so the black cars had pegs on it because their fuel cell is up higher that and that's how you regulated because you load your car you a lot of nights you do we're going to load the car and we always loaded you always loaded it because you work on it in the truck the garage stuck the whole roof will follow in on the car yeah so while you're loading it and you pull the door down we in there switching the fuel cells we never had no big fuel cells when I worked at gym we had a I tell you what we won a race with it we went about eight laps further than than anybody else didn't want I don't know where where it was that but Jeff went 17 laps farther than David did at Charlotte that one time remember the helmet that we had with Benny's inside of the helmet out and the helmet weighed 100 pounds we poured it full of lead so so take the helmet and you pour it full of hot lead and let it melt and then you or let it Harden and grind it weighed 100 pounds and you could you could put the helmet in the car when you went through inspection like it was laying there they never left it down we had a roll of tape that looked it was lead like a roll of tape the goggle box the bubble it was leave that on the dash and they never reached in there you just went through and they never weighed the cars after the race we we'd have 120 30 pounds off that car but the harder the hard part was and then you get ready to put Benny in the car you know oh my gosh we don't have the right helmet we got we got to get the radio helmet get the radio what was the guy so the guy had to walk back we put the biggest guy with that 100 pound helmet in your right hand and you had to be real cool walking back to the church because you were carrying 100 pounds in this hand alone and uh put the right helmet in there Memorial Juniors we had them uh Wheels on the right side didn't he have wheels Port full of lead yeah I always heard yeah we we would uh start the race on we were at Wilkesboro and was about to get lapped I mean we couldn't get our own way with them they didn't have just 200 pounds he's driving and finally he just acts like the motor quits running stops right on the flag stand and they threw the couch we didn't get left so we come in get them wheels off come in got them wheels on yeah and when we go like you said we always took the biggest guy to pick them up and carry them back you got to get them over well there wasn't no wall at Wilkesboro yeah they just rolled them back there was good but boy and like you said after the race they didn't weigh the car now we took off we won the race after we took them wheels off he's two tents quicker than everybody slower before you took them off now what did you ask about the the wheels with lead I from what I always understood that Junior Johnson had a set of wheels that he would qualify with and they qualify bad you know they didn't sit on a lot of poles killed in and inside the wheel they had a a troughed in there and they were full of lead so every wheel was maybe 40 50 pounds heavy that he would qualify with and start the race and if you remember kale would go backwards in the race started and after the first Pit Stop they got them wheels and tires off and he'd mow the field down be one or two laps this is in the 70s we won three championships in a row he'd be a lap or two on the field they'd come in in the last pit stop and put them Heavy Wheels and Tires back on and go out when they did start weighing cars and it was always on short tracks because they had inner liners yeah on the big tracks now where was the lead it made up just just imagine the wheels around they made a like a like a trough that went all the way around it inside of it and then poured all that full of lead sealed her off and he'd qualify and run with those I've always heard that and I never see them but but I learned uh some stuff when Harold Elliott became our engine builder and he was up there and so he told us a lot of this I can't believe we've ever done anything like that yeah I believe I do believe one thing we did have with June is we did was in the left side we took and put a worm gear all the way down through the frame rail took a 80 pound piece of punch we put two Motors one at the back of the frame rail one the other and that worm gear would run and on the bottom of that tungsten it had little wheels it's slided in the field you could hit the switch like if you needed more nose weight you could gain two two percent more nose weight moving it back need to get it out of there well we we ran it and we we were testing it and Terry's messing with it during practice over at Charlotte well he comes in he meant the old garage area he comes in pulls up just so happens Dix standing there talking to Junior up against that old workbench we had back in and Terry comes in and he stops all of a sudden the dash just goes well here's something going [Music] switch es he ain't stopped talking to Junior B's looking at the car thinking well said things are running hot now how'd it go again and all of a sudden the whole dash just went up and smoked well that was the end of that [Laughter] we went to uh Daytona one time with Rusty in the in Grand Prix and you know how you would Square everything off sharp I mean it wouldn't fit none of them you know they had a round temper for the tail all up around the car so nothing fit no Pontiacs got through inspection everything was sharp as could be and they said you're gonna have to fix it you ain't going out for practice so in the old garage The Clash was over so you couldn't do Bondo work around everybody you had to go pick you out a garage and and work on the car so we went over there behind the truck yeah yeah well we taped up the windows and we had our own stall over there when the bush Class Cars had gone we taped up the windows got the primer and got the Bondo out and went in there and uh we mixed up brondo and primer and we primed all every place the car didn't fit the template we just sprayed primer on it we mixed up Bondo cheese raked it at every corner we picked it up and rubbed it all over some dust and all that and the inspectors come in he said y'all are the only ones here's worked on your car popped a sticker on there and we went out and qualified we never touched the race car just made a whole scene that looked like we did yeah that was a Kodak or Kodiak yeah and went out and qualified yeah but never did change the thing on the car remember when Gary brought that one guy in there he still works I think and we called him bumper Sheriff do you remember him he went around with a gay game one job and that was to take down at Tyler's day go take the rear bumper template to each car and go by and it had you know would either be too narrow too wide or something that boy caught more cussing than one day than any man but you know the the racing nowadays have changed so much and I know people might not want to hear but you can't get away with all that stuff no no no the way the rules are that's why they like this David yeah that's what people like this this is what you could you could do because inspectors believe it or not you could give them a jacket or a couple of hats and stuff and I won't tell if this who it was but I when I was the kid you see them I'm the young one in the group but I got to be with all this because I was a kid growing up I personally was handed a bag of cash to going into Daytona one morning so this inspector would let us put our carburetor on the car and it was a bag of hundred dollar bills and they said let John carry it nobody's going to bother him yep nobody and I carried that bag of cash in there and handed it back to the engine builder we always had people coming in Daytona back doors and stuff and

Channel: The Scene Vault

Views: 56,118

Keywords: NASCAR, Grand National, Winston Cup, Scene, Winston Cup Scene, Racing, Motorsports, History, NASCAR History, Grand National Scene, NASCAR Hall of Fame, The Scene Vault, The Scene Vault Podcast

Id: -kKtYJ4U8LQ

Length: 32min 48sec (1968 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 09 2022