Fuel-Line Loopholes: Eleven Feet of Opportunity
NASCAR Measured the Tank. Smokey Measured the Rulebook.
NASCAR had decided how much gasoline a race car was allowed to carry. The obvious way to control that was to limit the size of the fuel tank, which probably seemed like a complete solution right up until Smokey Yunick read the rule.
Smokey looked at the tank. Then he looked at the engine. Somewhere between the two was eleven feet of plumbing NASCAR had not spent nearly enough time worrying about.
That was their mistake.
The Tank Was Only One Place to Keep Gasoline
A normal fuel line has one dull little job: move enough gasoline from the tank to the engine. Five-eighths of an inch or thereabouts could handle that without anybody holding a committee meeting.
Smokey was not interested in how much line the engine needed. He was interested in how much line the rulebook allowed.
So the Chevelle received roughly eleven feet of fuel line with an inside diameter around two inches. At that size, calling it plumbing was becoming charitable. Smokey later said the arrangement could hold about six gallons.
Six gallons is not a fuel line having a productive afternoon.
Six gallons is another fuel tank that happens to be long and skinny.
Those extra gallons could stretch a fuel run, delay a pit stop or eliminate one entirely while somebody obeying the spirit of the rule was sitting still with a gas can stuck in the quarter panel. NASCAR had controlled the obvious container. Smokey had simply discovered that gasoline was perfectly willing to live somewhere else.
NASCAR Removed the Tank
The famous inspection story has accumulated enough decoration over the years to furnish a small house. The number of violations changes depending on who tells it, the quotes get better with age, and even Smokey told his own stories with different details at different times.
The important part is considerably sturdier. In a 1999 account under his own name, Smokey confirmed the oversized eleven-foot fuel line and the episode in which NASCAR removed the Chevelle’s fuel tank.
Normally that would settle the transportation question. An internal-combustion engine has a stubborn preference for gasoline, and taking away the container full of it usually converts a race car into scenery.
Smokey started the Chevrolet.
Then he drove away.
NASCAR still had the fuel tank.
There are probably better ways to tell an inspector he has been measuring the wrong piece of the car, but very few are more satisfying.
Then NASCAR Discovered Diameter
Smokey’s defense was vintage Smokey because it did not require pretending the line was a normal piece of race-car plumbing. The tank capacity had been regulated. The fuel-line capacity had not.
If NASCAR wanted a small fuel line, it could have written down how small.
After Smokey demonstrated why that sentence might be useful, it did. He said the incident led NASCAR to limit the fuel-line opening to three-eighths of an inch.
That is one of the better ways to know a loophole worked. Before you arrived, there was no rule. After you left, somebody had found a pencil.
The Story Grew. The Fuel Line Was Real.
Smokey stories require a little care because Smokey was not merely good at building race cars. He was also one of racing’s better storytellers, and decades of retelling have polished some episodes until folklore and shop history are sharing the same wrench.
Some versions give the line five gallons instead of six. Some attach different violations to the inspection. Others supply a parting remark convenient enough to sound as though Hollywood had been waiting beside the garage with a notebook.
Those decorations are not necessary. The oversized line is already ridiculous enough without helping it.
Smokey himself acknowledged the eleven-foot line and the drive away without the tank. That leaves the essential story exactly where it belongs: NASCAR regulated how much fuel could sit in one part of the system, and Smokey noticed they had forgotten to finish the sentence.
Eleven Feet of Rulebook
Anybody could have installed an oversized fuel tank and hoped the inspectors forgot their tape measure. Smokey assumed they would measure the tank. That was why the tank did not need to be the clever part.
The clever part was eleven feet of space between the regulated tank and the hungry Chevrolet at the other end.
NASCAR measured the tank.
Smokey measured what they forgot.
Then NASCAR took the tank away and the car drove off without it.
By the time the rulebook caught up, Smokey had already used all eleven feet.