75 things for NASCAR’s 75th anniversary: Biggest cheaters
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Ryan McGee, ESPN Senior Writer
We are closing in on the final handful of weeks of the 2023 NASCAR Cup Series season, the stock car series’ 75th anniversary campaign. To celebrate, each week through the end of the season, Ryan McGee is presenting his top five favorite things about the sport.
Top five best-looking cars? Check. Top five toughest drivers? We’ve got it. Top five mustaches? There can be only one, so maybe not.
Without further ado, our 75 favorite things about NASCAR, celebrating 75 years of stock car racing.
Previous installments: Toughest drivers | Greatest races | Best title fights | Best-looking cars | Worst-looking cars
Five biggest cheaters
We’re not quite to the halfway point of our series of NASCAR 75 top-five greatest lists, but we can see the crossed flags off in the distance … or wait … is that a black flag telling us to pull into the pits and serve a penalty? Because after looking at drivers, races and cars, it’s time to turn the microscope on those who worked tirelessly to enter those drivers and cars into races by sneaking things past NASCAR tech inspectors. The crew chiefs and engineers who lived their racing lives in the gray area of the rulebook.
Yeah, I’ll say it. Cheaters. But when I say “cheaters,” understand what the paddock already does, that you can’t apply a stick-and-ball definition of “cheater” (see: Patriots, Astros, etc.) to a racer.
The greatest NASCAR teams and mechanics wear that title as a badge of honor. Sure, getting caught might lead to fines and penalties and embarrassment, but those are all temporary. The garage glory comes in the winks and nods and pats on the back from rivals as they say, “Dude, way to push the limits. I wish I had thought of that!”
So, grab a bottle of tire softener and a can of nitrous disguised as a fire extinguisher and read ahead as we present our top-five greatest cheaters in NASCAR history.
Honorable mention: Glenn Dunnaway
Poor Dunnaway went from historic hero to timeless goat in the matter of one postrace inspection — the very first postrace inspection in NASCAR Cup Series history.
It was June 19, 1949, and the 1-year-old sanctioning body was holding the first Strictly Stock event, the series that became what we now know as Cup, on a three-quarter-mile dirt track located just across the road from the current location of the massive international airport in Charlotte, North Carolina. Dunnaway, of nearby Gastonia, won the event by a full three laps, but inspectors ruled that his 1947 Ford was running illegally spaced rear springs, also known as “moonshiner springs,” that violated the rules of being a straight-off-the-street stock car.
Dunnaway and car owner Hubert Westmoreland — who had indeed made a moonshine run in that very car the night before — were stripped of the victory, and it was given to Jim Roper, whose name remains etched in the NASCAR history books as its first Cup Series winner. For the entire story, including the lawsuit that followed, read this piece from 2019, the 70th anniversary of the race.
5. Chad Knaus
The oldest saying in NASCAR goes: “If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t winning.” The NASCAR Hall of Fame is packed with racers who lived by that mantra, including the crew chief who was elected to the Hall earlier this month.
Knaus, who won 81 races and seven championships atop Jimmie Johnson’s pit box was (and still is) notorious for outworking and outsmarting his competition on the track and the tech inspectors in the garage. There is a fine line between innovation and rule breaking, and Knaus straddled that gray area like a Flying Wallenda tightroping across the Grand Canyon.
Still, he was suspended four times for four very different rules violations (he won back one of those via appeal) and was hit with a pair of $100,000 fines. In typical Knaus fashion, his team responded to the most infamous of those violations — busted for making an illegal adjustment to the rear window during 2006 Daytona 500 qualifying — by winning that 500 as well as two of the first three races while he was sitting back at the Hendrick Motorsports shop.
4. Ray Evernham
In case you were wondering from whom Knaus learned his playbook … well, here you go. Evernham rewrote more pages of the NASCAR rulebook than the people who actually wrote it.
No joke, when he became the crew chief for Hendrick Motorsports wunderkind Jeff Gordon in 1992, that rulebook wasn’t thicker than a pamphlet with a staple holding it together. A decade and a half later, when he finished his tenure as a team owner, that book was thick and bound like it was ready for a shelf at Barnes & Noble.
As the No. 24 Chevy piled up wins and championships, Evernham and Gordon were so dominant that their competition started frequently violating the unwritten don’t-air-dirty-laundry-in-public code and accused Evernham of cheating with everything from suspension parts to “exotic metals” to Jack Roush’s epic 1998 tirade on tire soaking, aka “Tiregate.”
Evernham’s Mona Lisa was the “T-Rex” Chevy specifically constructed to push the limits of the rulebook gray areas that was rolled out for the 1997 NASCAR All-Star Race. Gordon crushed the field. Afterward, NASCAR was so befuddled by the somehow technically legal car that it told Evernham to never bring it back to the racetrack again.
3. Michael Waltrip Racing
First off, there was never a collection of dudes working in a single race shop this century that you would have rather had beers with. Secondly, MWR won seven races and 14 poles during roughly 14 seasons in Cup, during which they also acted as Toyota’s first flagship program.
Unfortunately, that tenure started with a bizarre controversy during 2007 Daytona 500 qualifying when the MWR cars were caught with an illegal additive hidden in the fuel lines. The “rocket juice” was so blatant you could smell it as the Camrys rolled by in the garage after their qualifying runs. Later that year, Roush (I sense a theme here) accused MWR of stealing sway bars from his garage.
Then MWR was effectively ended at Richmond in 2013, when Clint Bowyer spun his car on purpose and Brian Vickers was told to pit, all to manipulate the outcome of the regular-season finale and help teammate Martin Truex Jr. make the Chase postseason field. The fallout was the most embarrassing in-race incident in NASCAR history and resulted in a record $300,000 fine, the removal of Truex from the Chase and an exit stage left by sponsor NAPA. Less than two years later, MWR was out of business.
2. Gary Nelson
Speaking of the Waltrips, here’s a guy who was calling the shots for Darrell Waltrip’s first big Cup wins at DiGard Racing and won Daytona 500s with Geoff Bodine and Bobby Allison, as well as the 1983 title with Allison.
He also became known for his not-so-legal innovations. Those included the move called “bombs away,” when Nelson would fill the car’s roll cage with ball bearings and buckshot so his cars would make minimum weight during inspection, but during the race he would signal his driver to pull a hidden lever, opening a trapdoor and dumping the 300 pounds of metal balls into the infield grass. Recalled Nelson’s last team boss, Felix Sabates: “I would see people after a race at Martinsville walking through the grass and tripping over those little balls, thinking, ‘Where the hell did those come from?!'”
How great was Nelson at bending rules? When legendary NASCAR technical director Dick Beaty retired in 1993, he hired Nelson as his replacement because “Gary was the guy who drove me nuts, but he also knows how everyone else drove me nuts, too.”
1. Smokey Yunick
Y’all can debate all day and night about whether we get some of the No. 1s on these NASCAR 75 lists correct, but not this one. Henry “Smokey” Yunick is the greatest mechanic who ever built a race car, and his cars treated rulebooks like they were merely a list of suggestions.
Yunick once brought a Chevelle to the racetrack that was built to seven-eighths scale to slip through the air faster. He filled roll cages with extra fuel. He inflated a basketball in an oversized fuel tank to make it seem legal when tested, then deflated it to make room for more gas during the race.
Angry officials once pulled one of his cars apart, including yanking the fuel cell out of the car completely and setting it on the ground, and handed him a list of nine items he needed to fix before he could race. He handed the list back, saying, “That should be 10 things,” and was somehow still able to crank it up and drive away. When those same officials later cornered him, demanding to know how he was able to cheat on fuel, he famously replied, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”
Yunick also holds 11 patents, including an early version of the SAFER barrier, and won 57 NASCAR races and two Cup Series championships as a crew chief and/or owner, plus the 1960 Indy 500. And yet, how much does Smokey’s name still rankle the feathers of NASCAR officials? He has been elected to nearly two dozen motorsports halls of fame but has yet to even be nominated for the NASCAR Hall.
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Dave Wilson
ATLANTA, Ga. — Despite a 28-7 loss to No. 3 Georgia in the SEC championship game Saturday, Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer said the No. 9 Crimson Tide are deserving of a spot in the College Football Playoff, saying a conference title game loss shouldn’t be punishment.
“If this game applies to and takes away from our resume, I don’t think that’s right,” DeBoer said. “I really don’t. I think the precedent’s been set and I don’t know how you can go into a conference playoff game when you’re the No. 1 seed and did all these things throughout the year — and playing in this game against one of the top teams in the country as well — how that can hurt you and keep you out of the playoff when again, we’ve done what we’ve done all year.”
The Tide opened the season with a 31-17 loss on the road to Florida State, then won eight straight, including victories over Georgia, Vanderbilt, Missouri and Tennessee. Despite a 23-21 loss to then-No. 11 Oklahoma at home on Nov. 15, the Tide qualified for a rematch with Georgia in Atlanta.
The Bulldogs held Alabama to 16 carries for -3 yards rushing, just the second time in school history the Tide have been held to negative yards rushing, after the 1968 Gator Bowl. They became the first team not to rush for a first down in an SEC championship game, according to ESPN Research. Their longest carry of the night was 5 yards.
Still, Alabama remained in striking distance until 8:13 remained, when, trailing 21-7, DeBoer opted to go for it on fourth-and-2 from the Tide’s own 12. Quarterback Ty Simpson threw the ball toward the sideline for Germie Bernard, but it sailed high and wide and out of bounds. Three plays later, Georgia quarterback Gunner Stockton threw a 13-yard touchdown pass to Zachariah Branch to stretch the lead to 28-7.
“If we’re really worried about the score, then you probably punt it on your own 11,” DeBoer said. “I’m here to win an SEC championship. If you lose by one or you lose by more, it’s still a loss. And that’s what I was caring about. We’re here to win an SEC championship. We can’t get worried about how much we lose by.”
DeBoer said Alabama was missing a few key pieces that would have helped against Georgia, all of whom would return before a playoff game, including running back Jam Miller.
“Two of our three losses are when Jam doesn’t play,” he said.
In the first quarter, Georgia’s Cole Speer blocked Blake Doud‘s punt and it was recovered and returned by Justin Williams to the Alabama 21. Four plays later, Stockton threw his first touchdown pass to Roderick Robinson II to give the Bulldogs a 7-0 lead. DeBoer said the block came from the spot usually manned by defensive lineman LT Overton, who was out for this game.
“There’s a check we’ve got to make we make all season long,” DeBoer said. “We missed it and they got an extra hat that we couldn’t block.”
DeBoer said that was the story of the game, that the Tide gave the Bulldogs four short fields and had to hold up against them. But he touted Alabama’s resilience, the same way he said the team bounced back all season.
“If you’re really looking at this game, I mean it was a 14-point game with 7½ minutes to go and we had the ball,” DeBoer said. “I don’t want to take anything away from what Georgia did.”
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey told ESPN that a loss to Georgia in this game should not be a negative in the eyes of the CFP selection committee.
“That may be the best team in the country right now,” Sankey said of Georgia. “And you’ve got to remember, Alabama went to Athens, won a game, won a number of other ranked games, played tough schedule. This is a reward tonight. It’s not a penalty for playing in that game.”
He said that if it does cost Alabama a CFP spot, he’s sure it will raise questions about the future of championship games in a significant way.
“But that question’s been there for decades and George and Alabama played here a couple of years ago, and Alabama beat an undefeated Georgia team in the four-team playoff [in 2018],” Sankey said. “We still kept the championship game.”
Simpson finished 19-of-39 for 212 yards and one touchdown and one interception, his first start in which he completed less than 50% of his throws. He was pressured all night and said the Georgia defense had a good plan. He also said that, regardless of the loss, his team’s resume holds up to scrutiny.
“We went through a gauntlet of the schedule,” Simpson said. “The SEC is the best conference in the country. That’s a really good team, and it’s pretty much as simple as that.”
ESPN’s Mark Schlabach contributed to this report.
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Mark Schlabach
ATLANTA — Georgia coach Kirby Smart doesn’t have an Alabama problem anymore.
After Smart’s teams dropped seven of their previous eight games against the Crimson Tide, the No. 3 Bulldogs flipped the script with a dominant 28-7 victory over No. 9 Alabama in Saturday’s SEC championship game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
By securing their second straight SEC title, the Bulldogs finished 12-1 and likely secured a top-four seed and first-round bye in the upcoming College Football Playoff.
It’s the first time Georgia has won back-to-back SEC championships since tailback Herschel Walker led them to three straight from 1980-82.
The fact the latest one came against Alabama, where Smart worked as an assistant under former coach Nick Saban from 2007 to 2015, made it all that much sweeter. It was Georgia’s most lopsided win against the Tide since a 21-0 victory on Oct. 2, 1976.
“It’s not about redemption; they’ve got a great program, great head coach,” Smart said. “It’s about our team tonight. These guys have been doubted and since that last game — our team was really physical tonight. Played an excellent game. Really proud of them and proud for these Georgia fans.”
In Alabama’s 24-21 victory on Sept. 27, which ended Georgia’s 33-game home winning streak, the Bulldogs trailed 14-0 early and never took the lead.
That wasn’t the case Saturday, as walk-on receiver Cole Speer delivered the first big play, blocking Alabama’s punt from its 21 with 6:31 left in the first quarter. That set up Gunner Stockton’s one-yard touchdown pass to running back Roderick Robinson II for an early 7-0 lead.
The Bulldogs were only getting started.
On the Tide’s next possession, safety KJ Bolden tipped Ty Simpson’s pass, which cornerback Daylen Everette intercepted. Georgia put together a 14-play drive that culminated with Stockton’s 5-yard scoring pass to Dillon Bell to make it 14-0.
Georgia’s defense, which couldn’t get off the field in the teams’ first meeting this season, held the Crimson Tide to minus-3 rushing on 16 attempts. Alabama’s longest run was five yards.
It was only the second time in school history that Alabama was held to negative rushing yards in a game (it had minus-45 in a 35-10 loss to Missouri in the 1968 Gator Bowl).
“I think that helped a lot,” Everette said. “We just tried to make it one-dimensional. That’s one thing we emphasized coming into this season: we’ve got to do better stopping the run on defense.”
Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson, who threw for 276 yards with three touchdowns in the earlier meeting, wasn’t nearly as good this time. He completed 19 of 39 passes for 212 yards with one touchdown and one interception. He was sacked three times.
Going back to the second half of the September game, Georgia’s defense shut out the Tide in seven straight quarters.
Alabama didn’t find the end zone Saturday until Simpson’s 23-yard touchdown to Germie Bernard with 12:33 left in the fourth quarter.
The Crimson Tide converted only 3 of 13 third downs, after going 13-for-19 in the earlier win at Georgia.
“We told them after that [September] game there wasn’t a lack of execution in that game at home,” Smart said. “They outplayed us. They out-executed us. They probably out-coached us. We weren’t going to let that happen again in terms of the way we played.”
Georgia has allowed 10 points or fewer in each of its past four games, the longest streak in a single season since the Bulldogs did it in eight straight games in 1971, according to ESPN Research.
“It was a huge difference,” Smart said. “It was the domination on that side of the ball. A lot of it came with a chip on their shoulder from the last one. It came with a chip on their shoulder from improving.”
Stockton was named the game’s MVP after completing 20 of 26 passes for 156 yards with three touchdowns. He was 8-for-10 for 61 yards with all three scores on third down.
“It’s a great feeling to see him get that,” Everette said of Stockton. “Proud of him for everything he’s done this year. Probably one of the toughest kids on the team. Toughest kid I know. Take all the hits, pop right back up.”
As the SEC’s highest-ranked team, Georgia won’t play again until a CFP quarterfinal at the Allstate Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Day (8 p.m. ET, ABC). The Bulldogs won’t learn their place in the 12-team bracket until it’s announced Sunday.
Georgia will be looking for revenge in New Orleans, as well. The Bulldogs fell to Notre Dame 23-10 in a CFP quarterfinal following the 2024 season. That was Stockton’s first start for the Bulldogs after Carson Beck was injured in the SEC championship game.
“We never quit,” Stockton said. “I think we’ve shown that in every game. I think that’s one of the best parts about our team, is we never quit.”
We’re just hours from the announcement of the College Football Playoff field. There’s plenty of drama left to play out on the field.
The committee is gathered at its headquarters in the Gaylord Texan Resort in Grapevine, Texas, to watch conference championship games that will impact their final ranking on Selection Day. It was only the beginning of conference championship weekend, but how these games unfolded with the committee watching will determine their five highest-ranked conference champions — and how that order will impact the contenders around them.
We’re tracking all the conference title games and the impact on the CFP field as well as the top plays and highlights from No. 1 Ohio State vs. No. 2 Indiana.
Jump to: CFP takeaways
Conference title takeaways
With the win against Alabama, Georgia should lock up a top-four seed and a first-round bye, but that position depends in part on how far the loser of the Big Ten championship game falls. It’s possible Ohio State and Indiana just flip — or stay status quo — but if it’s a lopsided defeat, Georgia can finish anywhere from No. 2 to No. 4.
The bigger question is how far Alabama drops following its decisive third loss. If Alabama sinks to No. 11, it will open the door for both Notre Dame and Miami to finish in the top 10 — regardless of order. Because of how Alabama lost — and the committee hasn’t forgotten their season-opening loss to Florida State — the Crimson Tide could fall out of the field. The committee also will consider that Alabama has a regular-season road win against the SEC champs, though. If Alabama drops only one spot, it could still be a buffer between Miami and Notre Dame — and it could be the last at-large team in at No. 10.
Texas Tech’s win against BYU secured a top-four finish and a first-round bye for the Red Raiders. It also helped Notre Dame’s playoff chances tremendously, as the Irish no longer have to be concerned about being leapfrogged by BYU.
This puzzle is far from complete, though.
It doesn’t matter for BYU if the committee keeps it at No. 11 or drops it to No. 12 (or beyond). Either way BYU would be bumped out during the seeding process to include a conference champion. Where BYU lands, though, will impact Miami.
The selection committee is most likely to do one of two things: drop No. 11 BYU to No. 12 behind Miami, or keep it exactly where it is. If BYU falls below the Canes, the committee could reconsider the tiebreaker between Miami and Notre Dame.
With Tulane’s win against North Texas on Friday, the American champs locked up a spot in the playoff, as they will be the committee’s fourth-highest-ranked conference champion. The Green Wave will earn the No. 11 or No. 12 seed, depending on who wins the ACC championship game. If Tulane gets the No. 11 seed and faces the committee’s No. 6 team on the road in the first round, as things stand now, Tulane will get a rematch against Ole Miss. The Rebels beat Tulane 45-10 on Sept. 20 in Oxford, and they will have home-field advantage again as the higher seed.
With Friday’s win against Troy, JMU‘s path to the playoff is straightforward: Duke needs to beat Virginia and win the ACC. If that happens, the committee will reward JMU with the No. 12 seed as its fifth and final conference champion — and it would come at the expense of the ACC champion, which would be excluded. The question is if the conference will be excluded entirely, though — or if No. 12 Miami will still sneak in, even without playing this weekend. That could happen if BYU loses to Texas Tech in the Big 12 title game and drops behind Miami — putting the Canes right below No. 10 Notre Dame. In that scenario, the committee could look at Miami’s season-opening win against the Irish as one of several tiebreakers it uses to separate comparable teams.
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