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So Junior used to weld 100 pounds of lead onto each wheel for the first set of tires used at short-track races. During the first pit stop, Junior’s guys would change tires and suddenly the car would be 400 pounds lighter. Naturally, it would then take off like a rocket. Literally, it wasn’t against the rules at the time. But NASCAR figured it out and changed the rules, so that cars were weighed before and after each race.

Likewise, Smokey Yunick told me a great story about how he got extra gas into his cars and how once NASCAR discovered it, they changed the rules to outlaw what he had done.

“There was no rule on how big the gas line could be,” Yunick told me. “Everyone else ran a 5/8-inch gas line. That was adequate to supply the race engine with gas, no question about it. I chose to run a two-inch gas line, which was obviously much too big, but it was 11 feet long and it held five gallons of gas. Nobody ever (specified size). A week after the race, the gas line couldn't be over a half-inch in diameter. The day that I did it, it was not illegal. That's how most all these innovations — so-called cheating — was not cheating the day it was done.”

And those two examples pretty much explain it: In rare occasions, guys knew they were cheating. But most honestly believed they were working through loopholes in the rules.

The opinions reflected herein are solely those of the above commentator and are not necessarily those of SPEEDtv.com, FOX, NewsCorp, or Speed Channel

Tom Jensen is the Editor in Chief for SPEEDtv.com, the former Executive Editor of NASCAR Scene and a contributing Editor for TruckSeries.com. He is the author of “Cheating: The Bad Things Good NASCAR Nextel Cup Racers Do In Pursuit of SPEED,” and has appeared on television and radio shows to discuss NASCAR racing. Jensen is the past President of the National Motorsports Press Association. Jensen is the 1997 National Motorsports Press Association Writer of the Year and has won numerous national and state awards for news reporting, columns and feature writing. The Answer Man is back at SPEEDtv.com. Tom Jensen answers your questions during every race week and looks forward to hearing from you - please e-mail it to

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