NASCAR Fan Reacts to the SNEAKIEST Rally CHEATING Stories!

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[@grimuk3817]

Exploiting a grey area is never 'cheating' in my opinion. If the rules are stated with little to no definitive oversight, then a little 'creative thinking' in an extremely competitive environment is to be expected, encouraged, and applauded.

[@kronop8884]

Colin Chapman (of Lotus/F1 fame) worked creatively to adapt and exploit the rules to his own ends, gaining what he described as ‘the unfair advantage’ over the opposition.

[@grimuk3817]

@@kronop8884 Indeed. To be honest, the way rules and regulations are implemented, it is very difficult to be entirely precise. It is _only_ by exploiting what _hasn't_ been said, that you are then able to refine what you can and can't do.

[@utha2665]

In my mind, you need this exploitation of the grey area, this is where innovation comes from.

[@PartikleVT]

Cheating is essential to creating good rules.

[@MrBanaanipommi]

haha that guy who said "i dont know, maybe it comes from here! (power)" is Juha kankkunen, 4 times world rally campion, he lives near to my home and my father build his house back in those days 8)

[@joshthomas2536]

You gotta watch Jeremy Clarksons take on the entire Lancia vs Audi era of Group B, explains virtually all the shortcuts they took, and the findings of the grey areas

[@3M46DN1M]

This. Great short-documentary.

[@snizzol]

Great video with Jeremy Clarksons kzbin.info/www/bejne/bJ3SZZd9idetqJo

[@invalidcrazy7034]

Probably impossible because of copyright

[@-esseff-]

Saw that Clarkson docu. Brilliant.

[@sometimesidreamaboutcheese]

Clarkson is fable fairy teller. His stories about Lancia's space frames are total twaddle bullshit.

[@MrAlkaest]

another Lancia tricks : the rules say all the cars must have a roll cage, but it doesn't say the material, so they made it in cardbord

[@Garbox80]

Which didn't exactly help Toivonen I guess... I know it was the fire that killed them, but did the body twist so that they didn't get out because of that? Or did it have any effect. Also, wasn't it this exact Lancia that they tricked FIA with on the production amounts? They had x amount of cars on one spot, showed them and then left for dinner with the scrutineers. Meanwhile a bunch of drivera drove the cars to another location and when the scrutineers were brought to check "the rest of the pack" after dinner, everything was fine. Luckily they didn't go too close to notice that the engines were warm 😂

[@mk1cortinatony395]

@@Garbox80 pretty sure the same story was told about metro 6r4 numbers too

[@rasmuswi]

@@Garbox80 AFAIK the car with the cardboard roll cage was the Stratos, not the S4. If you've seen the footage of Toivonens wrecked car you know the roll cage is more or less the only thing left, and that looks like a full roll cage.

[@Garbox80]

@@rasmuswi Oh, that might be right. I don't remember seeing a picture, just some short clips of a burning car on the bottom of the pit. But I don't necessarily have any urge to see one either, so I may have seen, but moved forward quite quickly.

[@DropkickNation]

That is 100% BS. 😂 There is zero chance it was made from cardboard.

[@sevcaczech5961]

12:22 He's not just any guy. He is the 4-time world champion Juha Kankkunen, who became world champion both in the era of Group B 1986 (Peugeout 205 T16), but also after its abolition, when the era of Group A cars began: 1987 (Lancia Delta HF 4WD), 1991 (Lancia Delta HF Integrale 16V) and 1993 (Toyota Celica Turbo 4WD [ST185]). You certainly can't call him a liar because he wasn't the creator of the car he was driving, although of course he may have had some information.

[@alexisborden3191]

He's also the driver, what the fuck's he gonna know, the correct answer is "I don't know, the boys at the factory have been working their magic." I mean, 'muscles' is a bad answer which makes me think he did know the team was pulling a fast one on the FIA. He knows at minimum that there is extra power, he's not necessarily gonna know that its illegal. Like, I can't imagine Mercedes told Hamilton "okay what we're gonna do is burn all the oil in the car over the grand prix, but it'll be good because we put special juices in the oil for extra power." Like no, they likely told him "alright, new update, we're thinking extra 20hp across all engine modes."

[@sevcaczech5961]

​@@alexisborden3191 Toyota was disqualified from the whole of the 1995 season and was also banned from competing in the 1996 season as well. The drivers, Auriol, Kankkunen and Schwartz, weren’t punished as there was nothing to suggest that they knew anything about the restrictor. "Round 7 Rallye Spain. The real ingenious part was that when the car was being examined by the FIA whilst stationary the little bypass spring device was retracted so the FIA scrutineers would simply see the restrictor plate exactly where it should be and be none the wiser. It was only when the engine was running, and the turbo was spooling up that the device was activated. It’s still unknown exactly how Toyota got caught. There are rumours that a disgruntled former mechanic may have blown the whistle to the FIA. Other rumours suggest that a mechanic got sloppy and forgot to properly secure the device in Auriol’s car and what happened in Australia at the previous round when everyone noted just how well the Celica took off from a standing start compared to the Subaru and Mitsubishi and that may have prompted the FIA to have a much more thorough look at the cars in Spain. The FIA came down hard on Toyota Team Europe. They were disqualified from not just the rally but the whole of the 1995 season. On top of that they were also banned from competing in the 1996 season as well. Ultimately, the drivers, Auriol, Kankkunen and Schwartz, weren’t punished as there was nothing to suggest that they knew anything about the restrictor. However, as they had still been driving an illegal car they also lost their drivers’ points for the year." www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/12v3lve/motorsportrallying_im_not_mad_im_actually_really/

[@alexisborden3191]

@@sevcaczech5961 Thank you for pasting some article, Juha is still a bad liar.

[@nomindseye]

@@alexisborden3191 How do you know he's a liar? To me, as a Finnish person, that sounded like a typicl joke rather than a lie.

[@alexisborden3191]

@@nomindseye Its awkward as fuck. That's a nervous laugh. There's no way they gave him 50 extra hp since the last year and he didn't realize something was up.

[@finnishculturalchannel]

Some are plain frauds, but one might say that there's a thin line between problem solving ambitious engineering and cheating. Top Gear's Clarkson has dived deep into those Lancia shenanigans: "Clarkson's favorite Rally Battle: Audi Quattro VS. Lancia 037".

[@sometimesidreamaboutcheese]

Clarkson is fable fairy teller. His stories about Lancia's space frames are total twaddle bullshit.

[@gladiusthrax4941]

Ford's air reservoir is quite ingenious. I wish it had worked better :D Adrian Newey (the chief designer of F1 Red Bull Racing) famously said that he is not looking at what the rule book says, but at what it doesn't say. You gotta exploit those gray areas if they are there to be exploited

[@oscarlainz]

Bending the rules is what makes motorsport evolve and give us this amazing sport, Nascar ones are not just innovative but also hilarious. Im all for it.

[@IWrocker]

Agreed 👍

[@sergiogiacomosammartano7623]

Well, technically, the first two entries in this lists were not full fledged "cheats"... they were "creative interpretations of the rules"! That's why the FIA just modified the rules to clearly outlaw these "tricks", without punishing the teams who came up with them. The last one, however, was infamously bad, as it clearly went against the rule-book by ignoring the reason why a restrictor plate was installed in the engine in the first place...

[@XtreeM_FaiL]

They didn't get punishment because they didn't cheat.

[@Holanduzo]

Juha Kankkunen was the artist of rallying, that way of making his cars to dance... was superb.

[@themotorsportstory]

Hey IWrocker, thanks for the shoutout, and I'm really glad you enjoyed the video! Like you, I've also grown up on NASCAR, so learning about other motorsports and all of the amazing stories behind them has been a great hobby of mine and what ultimately inspired me to start this channel. Keep up the good work👍

[@IWrocker]

Well said, Thanks for reaching out man! 🎉 You keep up the good work as well. 👍 I’ve been enjoying your videos lately

[@module79l28]

10:20 - Not that impressive but think about it this way, Ian: the car had 300hp, so that system could increase the power to 315hp when needed. That increase in power, although small, could make the difference between winning or losing stages, even if only by tenths of a second, and in WRC every tenth of a second counts. 🙂

[@alexisborden3191]

I mean, wasn't enough cause they still lost. Got thoroughly trounced by Citroen and Peugeot.

[@module79l28]

@@alexisborden3191 - I didn't write "would", I wrote "could".

[@krusher74]

if you saw a F1 car gain 5% it would decimate the field.

[@SeekTheTruthForYA]

It's romuered that a wistleblower gave away the Toyota cheat. The car had been on a few inspections from the FIA and they couldn't find anything wrong and then suddenly one time they pulled the turbo completly apart and found the washers. Nobody has come forward and admitted to be the wistleblower though, so who knows.

[@jmirsp4z]

the whole idea of motorsports besides being the fastest is "read the rule book and find out how to go around it" so it's rarely straight up cheating... more of a very murky grey area..

[@Holanduzo]

12:19 "That guy" is the master of rallying, mr. Juha Kankkunen.

[@rasmuswi]

That Ford thing kind of reminds me of the 1978 Brabham BT46 "Fan car" in Formula 1, which had a big fan at the rear that sucked all the air out from under the car (not according to Brabham, they claimed the fan just cooled the engine) and gave it mindblowing cornering speeds, and the 1981 twin chassis Lotus 88, which were both perfectly legal according to the F1 rules at the time, but all the other teams teamed up and demanded that the FIA banned the cars. Which they did.

[@HenkDeHauw]

the fancar was never banned. Thry just stopped racing it

[@diychad7268]

​@@HenkDeHauw if it wasn't banned and was such a great car then why would they "just stop racing it" then?? That doesn't make any sense whatsoever

[@rasmuswi]

@@diychad7268 probably because Brabham owner Bernie Ecclestone was very keen on becoming head of FOCA, the formula one constructors association, and therefore sacrificed the BT46B. F1 isn't just racing, it's politics too!

[@aussiebattler7789]

Larry Perkins is a brilliant engineer driver and a privateer in the V8 supercars and their predecessors, he did not have the same money to throw at his car as the factory teams so he would engineer solutions to gain an advantage. He developed a slide throttle for his 308 V8 that worked successfully and won bathurst for him ,other teams had tried them with no success but the other teams managed to get them banned because he developed them himself and did not have to share the technology

[@VideoDotGoogleDotCom]

12:28 That's Juha Kankkunen, a four time WRC champion.

[@justinreynolds2235]

The Ford air tank was originally experimented with by Prodrive (Subaru). It is not actually a cheat. The air was restricted going into the turbo, but since the air in the tank had already gone through the restrictor, it wasn't "illegal". Still clever!

[@anub1s15]

the celica's 50hp power advantage was so great that to this day I have fond memory's of seeing them on eurosport (I must have been 5 or 6 at the time) they were just so much more flamboyant then the rest (probably because they had power to spare and could be a little more flamboyant) they seemed to attack the corners more aggressively, fly higher over the jumps and embed rocks in legs the way only groub B could it was awesome :P and I've still got a soft spot for the 6th gen because of it. it's big, heavy, has the turning circle of a truck and is by modern standards quite a thirsty boy. but damnit those hips :P especially those high up on there springs standing proudly like a rally car should (not lowered and riced to hell and back with some 18" rims on it T.T sheer heracy that's what the 7th gen is for ) come to think of it they were responseable for me starting to like WRC, and then upon the realization that I wasn't seeing the car is as rooting for anymore until it came back wearing a corolla jacket I kinda lost interest :P after the hips on the celica bringing out a corolla...I'm sure shape wise it's better/more successful but it never looked quite as good doing what it did :P

[@kronop8884]

In addition, the Celica was a very good rally car with impeccable balance allowing it to be thrown around and jumped in a way the others could not quite match, it would probably have been championship winning car even without the cheat.

[@alexisborden3191]

@@kronop8884 It wasn't even a championship winning car with the cheat, Toyota raced 7 of 8 rounds in 1995 and at the time of their disqualification with 1 round left, were 26 and 28 points behind Subaru and Mitsubishi, and for context, a win was worth 20. Even with the cheat it was not a good car.

[@wigglynips]

Fords 'wind beneath my bumper' is completely revolutionary as far as i'm concerned. It isn't cheating and it didn't benefit them TOO much but it is what I expect of rally teams to try and exploit, and it's made it to mod cars since. And I love that.

[@scottday8454]

While not WRC, it was still motor sports. Recently there was an incident in V8's in Aus. Drivers & Teams were fined & deducted race win points after an anomaly about where the "ice box" was mounted in the vehicles for improvement on the driver comfort body suits during racing. Great reaction again Ian 👍👌

[@scottday8454]

Just got a Congratulations notification! Was prepared to report it but, no longer there! Apparently, scammers workin overtime again?... Cheers Scootr

[@phoenixrising7047]

Love the rally stuff Ian.

[@IWrocker]

Me too!! 🎉😎

[@SBGM-kg5iv]

The Toyota cheat was far from "simple spring washers" . It was described so: "Inside it was beautifully made. The springs inside the hose had been polished and machined so not to impede the air which passed through. To force the springs open without the special tool would require substantial force. It is the most sophisticated and ingenious device that either I or the FIA's technical experts have seen in a long-time. It was so well made there was no gap apparent to suggest there was any means of opening it."

[@vortex925]

In my opinion there is 4 levels to racing rule book Following the rule book Twisting the rule book with innovation (ford) Twisting the rule book with intent (Toyota) Flat out cheat

[@kronop8884]

I have actually worked on these Toyota works rally Celicas testing suspension technology back then, this was in the period directly after Toyota was banned from racing and they were using their works cars as test beds preparing for their return with the Corolla.

[@1998TDM]

Referring to the tax department an honest account once said to me "They make the rules, I just use them." Same for motorsport.

[@nickosmond]

Keep up the great work if you’re looking for more interesting types of racing to learn about you should definitely check out group 5, and super silhouette or just silhouette racing

[@tonyneves1388]

I call this form of cheating INOVATION !!! lololol

[@gar6446]

Different subject but Colin Chapman of Lotus was obsessed with weight saving. He knew a lighter car accelerated faster, braked later and was more nimble cornering and if he built a light car he could ballast it with weights low down to improve the handling. Some of the tricks he pulled to fulfill his design philosophy were sketchy to say the least. Cardboard firewalls painted silver for instance.

[@rasmuswi]

Or just body panels made out of aluminum that was so thin they could cut it with a scissor.

[@michaelkensbock661]

Most motorsports fans are tech enthusiasts. Admiration for a clever technical solution is basically a given with that kind of audience :)

[@amadeuz8161]

A bit similar to Blood transfusion, its was not forbidden to train at higher altitude but it gave an unfair edge and became a problem when they started to gather the blood for later use or others trying to get the same edge by chemicals.

[@Stroke2Engineering]

The drivers didn't know what was done until it was made official. That explains the reaction of Juha Kankkunen.

[@mhh7544]

That was Juha Kankkunen with Toyota, 4 times WRC champion.

[@trev3971]

If the car doesn't violate any rules, it's not cheating. "The spirit of the rule" is not a real thing. If an organizer's rule doesn't restrict cars in the way intended, it's a bad rule.

[@adrielquiroga7901]

The difference in cheating in motorsport vs any other sport is that cheating in motorsport requieres a lot of effort and clever thinking. Sometimes it even leads to developments that are later adopted in that discipline or in everyday cars.

[@DigsOutdoors]

I used to autocross and that was one of the first things I did. I found what was black and what was white. But there was plenty of grey to play with. With this in mind. Let me throw a what if at ya. Imagine if Smokey Yunick got into rally and not into NASCAR. That would have been so interesting LOL.

[@toungewizzard6994]

Coming from Europe, its great to hear your enthusiasm.

[@MikMech]

I wonder how many cheat innovations are still unknown?

[@squidcaps4308]

Using salt trucks: exploiting a loophole but also.. kind of cheating. Fords airtank: not cheating, exploiting a loophole. Toyotas restrictor bypass: 100% cheating but very, very clever.

[@ronrowe5612]

Ironically enough, those larger rear bumpers on the focus WRC were actually U.S spec focus bumpers, the euro Focus had the 2002 bumpers.

[@stefanmeier235]

Fate struck back for Toyota, when Carlos Sainz missed the 1998 WRC title because the engine of his Corolla broke with the finish of the final stage in sight.

[@MCPunk55]

Reminds me of that South Park episode where Cartman becomes a teacher for minorities. "I misinterpreted the rules."

[@kwofficial5962]

one of the biggest cheats in WRC is also 1986 Rallye Sanremo, so you should check that out if you haven't done it already

[@jonathanohagan1349]

No cheats here. Just massive drifts into the grey area. Nothing said you couldnt change tires, nothing said you couldnt redirect air. The restrictor was build to specs then improved.

[@TheBlaert]

It's quite true about exploring what the rulebook doesn't say. I did hillclimbs and sprints for a number of years and some of the innovative modifications I saw (and did) was crazy

[@georgeratcliffe7752]

I've always loved the story behind the Ford RS200 when talking about rally loopholes/cheats/stories

[@Holanduzo]

14:39 a technical scruteneer during the Spanish wrc event late in 1995.

[@g0fvt]

I remember few "cheats", some safety modifications were permitted so they have to be exploited. One car allegedely had issues with the half shaft oil seals leaking oil onto the rear brakes during hard cornering. They were allowed to add an extra support bearing in the axle to stabilise the halfshafts. It helped the tyres stay at the right angle to the ground, the improvement in tyre temperatures made the car faster. Another bit of creative reading was on a rotary engined car, the rules included a piece about exhaust manifolds, defined as the component that connects the cylinder head to the remainder of the exhaust system. Naturally they had no cylinder head so the rule clearly did not apply to their car... A creative thing done in Formula 1 was related to the water injection used on the turbo cars.. huge quantities of "antifreeze" added to the water to stop it freezing, when I say antifreeze I mean alcohol...very handy....

[@magillanz]

the extra large bumpers on the Focus for that season were the USA Spec bumpers. They didn't just create large bumpers from nowhere, they were already in the Ford Parts Bin for that model car. The Toyota man flexing his biceps was the legendary Juha Kankkunen, one of the greatest rally drivers of his generation, probably one of the greats of all time.

[@Itsjustme-Justme]

When the rules don't include how the supercharging system has to work in detail, an air storage tank most probably isn't against the rules. The question is: Is it really helpful to have that system? It can only provide extra air for a second or two at a time and it adds weight to the car. It doesn't increase the continous power output, it only speeds up throttle response. That means, they added extra power for acceleration in the first few seconds after pedal kick down, but added weight that is bad for any acceleration. It would be interesting to see lap times with and without the system in an otherwise identical car.

[@alexisborden3191]

If you take a peek at the 2003 season results, it was indeed, not helpful, or if it was, the rest of the car was god-awful.

[@bigbuckoramma]

The funny thing is that, while systems exactly like this arent used anymore, moden WRC Cars still have very large and intricate intake manifolds and plenums, with large capacity plenums, that are basically charge tanks, connected to the intake via Helmholtz Resonators that help push a little extra air volume into the intake when the intake frequency reaches the right point, tuned to a particular RPM range. All of it is behind the restrictor, and still all technically legal.

[@alexisborden3191]

@@bigbuckoramma And it doesn't take an literal ass-load of titanium tank and piping to do it either.

[@bigbuckoramma]

@@alexisborden3191 And its all passive, not requiring any more air control valves, or ECU tuning to work properly.

[@phillipbartlett1819]

Gray areas are learning areas lol. I headed up a dirt track team in the Midwest and Im a electronics engineer so I caused some new rules lol. From a ignition system voltage boost to a recall gauge set.

[@unit-16]

As a spectator, I experienced the Celica 205 in the forest and man it was loud. At the time I said it had way more than the 300 (official) bhp and I've had the privilage of seeing nearly all the works cars in action since about 1980. Regarding other cheats by Toyota, I've heard stories about lead floor mats used only while the cars were being weighed, the St185 ran an antilag system that I haven't seen in the homologation papers (yes, I looked). I saw the Lancia Delta Integrale pushing out blue flames and a strange smell which maybe suggests dodgy fuel. I've heard stories about spare tyres, fire extinguishers and even roll cages filled with nitrous oxide(!!!). The Opel Monza used to mysteriously damage its really heavy rear hatch glass regularly and ran without it. Even heard rumours about Audi swapping an an entire car on an event...

[@Pappa_66]

Damned! Three of my absolute heros (Walter Röhl, Markku Alen and Juha Kankkunen) were involved and two of them are Finnish!!! Walter changed to the Audi Quattro Team with Hannu Mikkola. OK, I have a story for you. The Group B rules "demanded", that 200 road legal versions of the car had to be manufactured, before allowed to use the actual WRC version. There was "a Team", which had managed to make only 100. So after "inspecting the first" 100 cars, the team took the WRC Officials to a very long lunch, cause "the other 100" cars where in "another location". So, during the lunch, the team drove the same 100 cars to this "other location" and it worked!!! Best Regards from Finland!!

[@brunobray9869]

The Celica thing was found by FIA spanish commissioners, on that season's Rally of Spain 😉👌

[@okok-gg5fl]

Kankkunen said they just drive what factory gave,at least that kind cheat didnt need driver input like some other cheats.

[@MrMichkov]

The Ford system can't be considered a cheat, since it is still taking in air via the restrictor. There is nothing saying that you can't store the air for future use. It's clever engineering, not cheating.

[@ajblair9114]

The Toyota intake hack was discovered because they didn't like the fact they had to carry extra weight to make it fair for the other manufacturers that couldn't keep up. This was supposed to slow them down but when they kept winning with the heaviest cars in the field questions were asked... And the rest of history

[@righty-o3585]

A lot of those mods actually weren't against any rules until AFTER they were used for the first time.

[@Raceb8420]

Not my cheat but interesting, nonetheless. My race team purchased a Group B ISCCA road-race car, an 87 Pontiac Firebird TA. The car won the championship a few years prior, and the seller was getting out of racing. Our driver was a rookie, and had to go through the licensing process before becoming eligible do compete for the championship. It takes about 8-9 race weekends earn a licence. Our driver was noticably quick. So much so, we had a few veteran drivers from our class come poke around our pit, "introducing" themselves. We finished licencing, and just to be certain that everything about the car was in compliance with the rules, we took the engine out to have it rebuilt. One of the rules stated that we had to use factory iron block limited to 5.0L, with stock internals. We were glad we did because, upon tearing down the old engine, we found out it was a complete roller motor. The cam, lifters, and rockers, were all violations. We built a new motor that was legal now and we won the championship that year.

[@zweispurmopped]

Turbos just invite such power-hacks. A friend of mine owned a Toyota Supra MkIII. One day we were doing some maintenance on our cars and I happened to get a peek at the turbo. "Oh look! The pressure vessel of the waste gate is only bolted on! Great for tuning!" He asked why I thought so, and I told him that the travel of the piston that pushes the waste gate open could be made longer by pushing washers under the thingy. "Skritt-skritt-skritt!" said the ratchet as he hastily stacked 4mm of washers in. Before, the Supra took 16 seconds from 0-100mph/160kph. After the little cheat, it was 14. That started a very expensive hobby for him, but he got a nicely running ~450-500hp Supra in the end. 😊 Same day a friend of his who owned a VW Golf 3 with the 1.9 litre TDI engine was there, too, and instantly asked if one could do something about his Golf, too. Don't mind if the engine blows up, just make it go faster, he insisted. We found the hose that went from the compressor side of the turbo to the ECU. This carries the information of how much pressure there is, so defines the spin the ECU gives the turbine through the VW turbo's adjustable stator. If the pressure in that hose dropped due to some leakage, let's say a 2mm hole, the ECU would control the stator for higher turbine RPMs and thus make more pressure. Some time after he had started on his trip home, he called us from the Autobahn to enthusiastically tell us that the car was doing 220 kph now, 30 faster than its usual top speed. He was over the moon happy! 🤗 (It must have been three weeks or so later when we went to visit him. As we arrived, he emerged from his garage with a big grin and a turbo in his hands that sounded like a cow bell as he shook it. The turbine had come of a wee bit… ☺)

[@MoGreazy]

The Focus air tank was neither a cheat per se nor even a “gray area”. The rules only stipulated that air entering the intake must first pass through the restrictor… and the air coming into the intake from the tank - albeit directly and not through the restrictor - had, in fact, passed through the restrictor… on its way to the tank! Brilliant, though of no real help to Ford’s results that year.

[@chrismoody1342]

Well holy Smokey Yunick and Rodger Penske. They all stretch the rules till they’re banished. The history is deep. It’s my understanding that the venerable Porsche 917 used such thin wall tubing in the chassis that they inflated it with nitrogen to help keep its shape and it also weighed less filled with nitrogen rather than air. I think also to get around NACAR restriction plates, a spacer was devised that was overcame the fixed diameter restrictions. It was quickly banned. And there’s plenty more.

[@ierbutza21]

And this is why "spec series" arent this insane,most of the are hard(not imposible) to pull off but in series between manufacturers like wrc wec F1 touring cars gt racing the engineers can go wild when the teams want a bit of "fun",also besides the engineers going crazi you must follow up on some teams,Lancia for example did more than just salting the roads.

[@xanderveldmuisje]

European here, this is what racing is all about. Finding time between the rules.

[@mikaeltillenius8751]

You got Henry "Smokey" Yunick ower there! 😆👍

[@mgytitanic1912]

They didn't cheat. They adapted and overcame. A film has recently been released, Lancia vs Audi: Race to Glory. It's a superb watch and covers the period mentioned at the beginning of the video.

[@pliashmuldba]

My friend. Back in the day he had a Fiat 131 Mirafiori But he heard of that NOS gas, so he went and got ( stole ) a big bottle ( not a little blue one ), but one that could barely fit in / on the trunk back seat. He then put a brass tube on the NOS tank ( thicker than brake line ) routed it forward thru the car cabin and thru the firewall. Drilled a hole in the intake manifold and put the brass line in there. Then he headed for the motorway, opned up the car as fast as it would go on its own, and then reached back and just cranked open the valve on the big NOS tank. And all hell broke loose for a few seconds until it went KABOOM and he spun out while looking at the sky. When stopped he found most of the motor and gear box under the car / firewall

[@frankisfunny2007]

It's not cheating if the rule against a specific form of cheating hasn't been written down yet. Remember Smokey Yunick?

[@antcommander1367]

''So if you want to win, hire a Finn'' (mainly 80'a and 90's) as we finns have quite few per capita

[@neiltitmus9744]

The 037 used to have bodywork behind the rear wheels this was catching mud and weight so they deleted it and put a full with mud flap there instead

[@petebeatminister]

Well, there is cheating, and there is improvement. Especially in motorsport there is always a grey zone when it comes to improvements. And it also depends who is talking about it. Like in F1, if Toto Wolf (the team boss of Mercedes) spots a technical improvement in some other team's car, its cheating. If the improvement is in a Mercedes car, its innovation. Countless times this happened in motorsport, sometimes even retroactively. Real cheating is something different, IMHO. Like taking a shortcut on the track, or manipulating the timing, sabotaging other cars and stuff like that.

[@alexisborden3191]

The other funny thing about Toyota is they were still bad. By the time they were disqualified after the 7th of 8 rounds. They were 26 and 28 points back from Subaru and Mitsubishi respectively. At the time it was 20 points for a win, and while not mathematically impossible, a comeback was very unlikely.

[@RuiFernandoCaldas]

The tank is not cheating because they are not braking the rules but the Toyota one is, because technically, their intake has more area and the rules specified a specific area. We see this all the time. Finding holes in the rules and develop the car around it. Get discovered to be ban/ruled or adopted by the others... It's evolution and it's healthy!

[@derek-iy6ch]

The tank can't store more boost then the engine is getting, it's just storing a little boost for later until they ban it

[@bluevette1978]

If you can't be hit with a fine or suspension, it's not cheating. Bending the rules and innovating happens within EVERY team in motorsports, some of us just see where the rules left a gap and use it while others just finish behind us!

[@Fwdking]

Moving around rules in what some might say is a grey area creates innovation

[@gordowg1wg145]

Some sporting bodies circumvent the "It doesn't say it's illegal, so it must be legal" arguement by stating something like "Anything not specified as legal, is illegal". I recall there being a couple of times when teams managed to find differences in wording, and meaning, between the FIA's French and English language rule books, that they managed to take advantage of - until either the FIA clossed the loop-hole, the other teams picked up on it negating the advantage, or both.

[@5150_Designs]

I think grey area makes rule language specific, that way there is no grey area around the rule later on. Grey area however, is 100% exploitable and imo, 100% should be exploited so rules can account for unfair advantages.

[@jimmytclem]

The ford tank wasnt a cheat due to the wording of where the restrictor plate was, it was a clever exploit. The toyota on the other hand was a blatant cheat by disabling the restrictor completely.

[@markkoops2611]

The Ford 2093 idea.. Not cheating, great engineering

[@paulheywood2116]

I like the Whittington brothers nitrous hidden in seal in door jambs

[@popcornshiner3937]

You also have to wonder how AI is going to help engineers to use this new tech to find gray areas in the rule book to better their odds.

[@DjDolHaus86]

I love grey area exploitation in motorsport, it's clever rather than deceptive

[@javiercerezalanton8172]

Lancia is the reason why group b does not exist anymore because of that gray zone in the rules

[@vitallink4830]

It's not cheating until the rules are changed.

[@philipcaseyacalloway204]

Every time I see the Toyota cheat it still boggles my mind… 50 horsepower. That’s a lot of extra grunt.

[@ShadowViewsOnly]

Oh God, these images... Just brings me WAAAAAY back to Colin McRae Rally 2... These cars man.. :D

[@gitchegumee]

The only way to change a rule that is in the grey area is to challenge it until its black and white.

[@gizmobro5760]

The focous turbo was always on and had way more boost due to that tank.

[@Garbox80]

I think the 5% gain was after they counted out loss that the weight of that titanium tank made. I might remember wrong though. And 5% is a lot when you're fighting within a couple of seconds and less.

[@Grumpy-Goblin]

I think it comes down to the rule book. The engineers are tasked with gaining any competitive advantage they can within the rules laid down. In the case of Ford they did not cheat they exploited the rules and any of their competitors could have done the same had they thought of it. Toyota actually deliberately went outside the rules which is cheating because you have created a modification that your competitors cannot use.

[@sporkfindus4777]

Still not used to people calling the sport "rally". I've always known it as "rallying", but you enter or watch a "rally"

[@llmkursk8254]

Bit of a fun fact I learned from Adian Millward’s video on the Celica: They only found out because the Subaru team challenged the Toyota team to a drag race while at a super special stage, at night. For some reason, the Toyota team agreed, and even when the cars had the same start, the Celica just rocketed off

[@nirfz]

The salt part with Lancia wasn't really cheating in my opinion, as it changed the conditions from ice to dry or wet road for everybody, not just for them. With Fords "air bumper" i would say, if they just used it as antilag and directed the air only into the exhaust, that would have meant that they didn't cheat the power restrictor and just worked against the downside of the turbo engine principle. With also directing air into the intake side it can count as cheating, as the power restrictors were to limit engine power to a similar amount among all the participants (a little bit like todays BOP) So it might count as cheating to me. And for Toyota, there's no discussion about if it's cheating or not. (If they maybe had used a deforming housing for the restrictor instead of washers it would have been harder to detect as there would not have been extra items.)

[@shaunadams2619]

@nirfz - Lancia definitely had an advantage over the others after salting parts of the road cos they were able to change their tyes to suit the conditions....✌

[@nirfz]

@@shaunadams2619 Everybody had their scouts for road conditions, and everybody knew the conditions. So they didn't have an advantage because of the salting in my opinion. They just removed their disadvantage. Also the salting only happened on 1 special stage and not during the whole rallye. They basically secured the victory by doing that. Röhrl didn't win all the 11 minutes gap just on that one stage. The tyre changes gave them an advantage, but was it an *unfair* advantage? It wasn't against the rules, so no unfair advantage i'd say. (It wasn't against the rules because you loose time in stopping and changing the tyres too. Usually you'd loose between 2 and 5 minutes. Something you would not be able to make up on other rallyes. Only the Monte has/had enough changes in road conditions that it made sense.)

[@kathrynmcintosh2726]

Hello from Perth Western Australia 🇦🇺. Something interesting to react to is Top Gear 1500 pounds Porsche challenge. Classic

[@mikethomas5276]

All I have to say about the second one is "Ain't no rule says what size a fuel line is"....I like how he dismissed the 5% boost of that one but freaked out on getting 50hp on the second one. The both made around 300hp so a 5% boost is around15hp. That is a pretty big increase. Sure it's not the 50 from Toyota, but still a nice gain. The difference is Toyota looked at the rule book, saw what they were doing was illegal, and said "we're gonna do it anyways" while Ford looked at it and said "show me the rule that says I can't".

[@NBSV1]

When everything is so even 5% can make a difference, but not be super obvious on the track. The 50hp extra was enough to be noticeable so they looked deeper into it.

[@dalelc43]

The cars are scrutineered before racing, the officials new about the tank, it wasn't illegal. Three races in they changed the rules to make it illegal, you can't do that if you don't know it exists.

[@kallsop2]

One of my favorite "interpretation of the rules" was Roger Penske's Trans Am team back in 1969. The fueling rig for refueling during pit stops had rather vague guidelines " The main stipulation was that the bottom of the fueling rig could be no more than six feet off the ground. No restrictions on the top. " So, Penske's team built a 20 foot tall rig with two storage containers for the fuel. The bottom section was to the rules, but the upper storage section was built like a thermos. It had an outer section and then the actual fuel storage was in an inner container. In between the two sections they packed it with dry ice and acetone to super cool and condense the fuel. The first part meant with the fuel being cooled it actually condensed and in theory you could get 23 gallons into a 22 gallon tank. The other advantage was the condensed fuel flowed faster through the required fueling hose so they could fuel the car faster. www.hagerty.com/media/automotive-history/nothing-bends-rules-like-this-penske-fueling-tower/

[@The_Slavstralian]

The ford one I wouldn't call cheating. They were just storing the boost they had already generated. The Celica one definitely cheating, they knowingly circumvented the rules.

[@muppmuppet9323]

Smokey Yunick is a name that comes to mind 😎