A Brickyard Legend Passes On

[KC]

Legendary race car preparer and owner Smokey Yunick passed away today from a long battle with leukemia. Yunick was famous for rule bending race cars and slight of hand tricks. he created the side-car Indy car for the mid-60s Indy 500, created the 7/8s scale Chevelle's for NASCAR competition and other rule bending ideas and concepts.

Another bit of trivia about Yunick was that he did not know his true first naem or date of birth. A local priest in Philadelphia said that he was christened either Henry or Gregory and he chose Henry as his name of record. To the race fans, drivers and press he was always Smokey.

Yunick's wins include the 1960 Indy 500 with Jim Rathman and 1961 Daytona with Marvin Panch and 1962 Daytona with Fireball Roberts.

Yunick's rule bending episodes include the time his car was suspected of an oversize fuel cell and was immediately torn down by NASCAR officials. The fduel tank was removed and measured and was found legal. On finding the car legal, Yunick jumped in the car, minus the tank, started it up and drove it away.

Yunick was also one of the first to experiment in rudimentary aerodynamics and spent numerous hours perfecting the underbodies of his Indy 500 cars, a place that very few saw any reason to work on.

Yunick also brought about the template age for NASCAR by building an illegal 7/8s scale Chevelle. It took NASCAR officials most of racing season before it was determined the car was slightly smaller. They instituted the template as a way to eliminate this in the future.

Racing has lost one of the true characters and innovators. My condolences to his family.

[DNQ]

Sad news

I must admit all I know Yunnick for is his side car from Indy in the 60's. That must be the weirdest car ever.

[floid2000]

I've read and heard a lot about Smokey Yunick since I became a racefan.He was quite an inovator and was well respected by everyone in the sport. ---Trivia Bit--- Smokey Yunicks "original" dyno is at the Don Garlitz museum in Ocala,Florida.

[Neil C]

Smokey was admitted to the North American Motorsports Hall of Fame, last year. I was fortunate to have attended the ceremonies and the stories of Smokey were great.

The secret to his mysterious fuel tank capacity was 2 inch diameter fuel lines!

Donny Alison was racing for another Ford team when he asked Smokey if he knew how he could shave another 1/2 second off his lap time. Smokey gave him some setup tips and Alison came back and reported to him that he took exactly 1/2 second off his time. Smokey told him "You should have asked me for a full second."

Whatever rules there are for getting into heaven, you can bet Smokey Yunick is up there bending them.

[Emfa]

What a character! A real innovator.

I did hear, though, that Bill France was not at all impressed with his 'innovations', and that he subsequently had a serious falling out with the France family.