The Gospel According to T.C. Cannon

EXPLORING THE STORIED LIFE OF A BIRMINGHAM INSTITUTION.

T.C. CANNON POSES WITH SOME OF HIS FAVORITE VEHICLES WHILE SPORTING HIS SIGNATURE UAB SHIRTS. PHOTO BY JULIANNA HUNTER

Those who have followed city politics in the past decade or spent evenings as bar flies at any time between the 1960s to the ‘90s in local drinking establishments perhaps know of Terry “T.C.” Cannon. In 1962, Cannon and his older brother Joe opened the Plaza bar (better known as the “Upside Down” Plaza) on 11th Court South behind Western Supermarket on Highland Avenue (currently the long time home of Hot and Hot Fish Club).

Cannon recalls with a grin that his brother Joe had been ‘captured’ (involved with) then gambling kingpin of Birmingham, Little Man Popwell. “So everything (at the Plaza) was in my name,” T.C. says.

The Plaza drew a nightly cast of characters, creating an oddball clientele mix; Lawyers, doctors, students, businessmen, musicians, librarians, and schoolteachers made it the most eclectic bar in town. Bohemians drank with professionals. “It’s a wonder that the magnolia tree outside the Plaza survived because almost every lawyer in Birmingham has pissed on it,” an attorney friend and long ago Plaza patron told me.

The lounge was a Southside landmark. The Upside Down Plaza is currently still in business in the Five Points South area beneath Pickwick Plaza, where it relocated when the lease was not renewed in the mid-‘80s. In 1987, the nightclub began operation under new ownership.

Cannon claims the Plaza was forced out of its original locale because the landlord discovered religion. “A local preacher instructed them that they had to get rid of this horrible beer joint,” says T.C. “We still had three years on the lease and when we went to court, we won and got to stay three more years. And that was a lot of fun.”

How the Plaza’s sign came to be hung upside down is recalled by T.C. on a recent afternoon at his home on Seventh Avenue South, in an old Battery Warehouse a block away from a bar called Tin Roof, which once was home to “TC’s,” the bar that Cannon opened in the Lakeview entertainment district in 1986.

“The reason the Plaza got the name ‘Upside Down’ was because Dick Coffee, the guy that went to 787 Alabama football games in a row without missing one, came into the joint one day. He was selling ads for a publication,” Cannon recalls. “We said, ‘Go away, man, we’re starving to death. We damn sure can’t afford an ad.’ But then we found out how much a one-inch ad in the publication would cost. My brother Joe said, ‘Hell, a little one-inch ad is going to get lost.’ So Joe suggested having the Plaza’s name upside down to make it stand out in the ad.”

Cannon’s next lounge venture, TC’s, soon earned a reputation every bit as charming as the original Upside Down Plaza. “I had the only beer joint in the world financed by the federal government. I applied to the SBA — Small Business Administration,” he says. “I applied to them for financial assistance and, of course, had to concoct an application and try to get it railroaded through claiming that my inventory belonged to ‘so and so.’ I had a little cash and a whole lot of [expletive],” says T.C. during an interview at his warehouse home.

Surrounding his warehouse is a fleet of Volkswagen Beetles and VW vans in various states of disrepair. “In the old days I drove ‘em because I had to. They were economical. Anybody that can chew bubblegum and walk at that same time can work on a VW. A very economical vehicle. We also raced them,” he admits.

“I’ve known T.C. for about 35 years. He might be the craziest human I’ve ever known,” long time friend Billy Jett days with a laugh. “Eccentric is an understatement. Anybody that’s got the money he’s got and lives in a battery warehouse, that’s kind of eccentric right there.

“The damn Volkswagens and the junk that he has accumulated . . . Why does he accumulate that stuff? I don’t think he has a clue. But we loved The Plaza and his other place, T.C.’s . . . There’s 25 or 30 of us that run around together and half of us met our wives at the Upside Down Plaza.”

The Beer Joint Business

Cannon was 10-years old when he began working in the bar business in 1947. “I was born and raised on a dairy farm on Acton Road and old Highway 280. In those days Shelby County was dry. Talladega County was dry. We had the typical ‘county line businesses’ (bars that sold booze legally in Jefferson County). Our dairy farm was adjacent to all those joints,” says Cannon.

“At one time or another there were nine beer joints. Out of those nine, my family either owned or built or had an interest in five of the nine,” he says. Cannon’s father drowned on a fishing trip in the Coosa River with the president of Moore-Handley Hardware when T.C. was five-tears old. His mom raised the family.

“My mother was a ‘Rosie the Riveter,’” he says. “She worked at TCI —Tennessee Coal and Iron, which is now U.S. Steel. My mother built one of our restaurants from scratch. She ran a 140-acre dairy farm with 150 cows and she built a restaurant called Akantu Restaurant, which was local Indian language for ‘Tip Top.’  It was a barbecue and beer joint. At age ten I was working as a bus boy.” Much of the family business included customers stocking up to sell booze in dry counties. His mother eventually became a LPN despite having only a sixth grade education.

When asked if he ever was forced into physical altercations while in the nightclub business, Cannon replies, “Nope. My brother Joe was the world’s greatest bouncer. He was a pretty cool, laid-back dude. He whipped more people without ever laying a hand on ‘em.”

Cannon was once subpoenaed to court when there was a stabbing at the Upside Down Plaza. A guy named Paul and a little guy got into a fight while Cannon was stocking the cooler with beer. Cannon tells the story: “So I jumped over the bar and got around to ‘em. We’re all in a circle and I hear one of them say, ‘You’re drinking my beer.’ And the other says, ‘I wouldn’t drink your beer after you’ve had your filthy mouth on it.’ And I see the shorter guy pop my friend Paul a good one and then run off.

“But then a few days later, I’m subpoenaed to court because Paul had stabbed the little guy before Paul was punched. The little guy had been cut wide open. While I was standing there close to ‘em, Paul — a master with a Case double X single-blade knife — had pulled that knife before he got hit. He pulled it and flicked it with one hand and reached around and cut the guy from his backbone all the way around to his gut twice.

“In court, the victim pulled up his shirt to show the judge [his wounds]. And it was like a perfect little railroad track — two slits with the stitches on it, you know? (T.C. laughs)  I had been packing the box (beer cooler) and Paul reached over the bar and dropped the knife into the cooler after he cut the guy. He didn’t want the cops to catch him with the knife. I didn’t know the knife was in there until I found it about six months later. I probably still have it somewhere.”

Cannon says that most fights never lasted long. “At [The Plaza], we never really had anything other than real quickies. Most barroom brawls last about 30 seconds,” he says. “They wind up rolling around on the floor and that’s about it. In the later days I got smarter. I used to try to break them up physically or whatever. Wrong. I instructed bar employees that when the [expletive] goes down, immediately get the girl that started the trouble and walk her out of the place. Ninety-seven percent of all bar room trouble is over a girl, whether she’s there or not.”

Racecar driving days

I’d known Cannon a little from patronizing the Upside Down Plaza for years. But the first time I spent time with him away from one of his bars was on a Saturday morning when I was writing a story about the history of cheating in NASCAR. Cannon had raced on the beaches of Daytona in the early 1950s, driving on the sprint car circuit throughout the Midwest in the late ‘50s, and raced at Birmingham International Raceway (BIR) in the ’60s and ’70s.

On a Saturday morning while driving to a service station whose owner Cannon had promised would tell NASCAR cheating stories (the owner didn’t), Cannon stopped on Clairmont Avenue every 50 feet to pick up golf balls laying against the curb that had escaped Highland Avenue Golf Course. Soon, a couple dozen golf balls rolled around on the floorboard of his car.

“We built a 1939 Chevy coupe. In those days they had two divisions of what is now known as NASCAR,” Cannon remembers. “In 1953 we went to Daytona to race on the beach before they built Daytona Speedway. Two miles of beach and two miles of highway made it a four-mile oval racetrack. I later started racing cars at BIR at age 15.” He raced late model modified cars against the likes of Bobby and Donnie Allison and Red Farmer. “I was not very successful. Never won a race. I was not a good mechanic or a good racecar driver,” he admits.

After graduating from the University of Southern Mississippi in 1959, Cannon joined a sprint car team that included 1949 Indy 500 winner Bill Holland. The team raced on the sprint car circuit throughout the Midwest with Cannon behind the wheel when Holland was unavailable.

“I came back to Birmingham in 1962 because this insane redneck shot my mother,” Cannon says. “She survived and lived another 50 years in Florida.” He opened the Upside Down Plaza with his brother Joe, also a racecar driver.

The pair began competing regularly at BIR. Cannon raced in blue jeans and a T-shirt. In those days, drivers did not wear fire-retardant suits. “The guys that were really concerned about fire would buy a jumpsuit and soak it in a fire-retarding substance, which certainly did not make it that safe.”

Cannon worked on late NASCAR star Fireball Roberts’ crew for one race at Dixie Speedway in Midfield, a high-banked, quarter-mile dirt track in the early 1960s. Roberts burned to death after a crash in the World 600 at Charlotte Speedway in 1964. Cannon claims that Roberts’ driving suit was not soaked in the fire-retardant substance because he was allergic to the chemical. “Fireball did a ‘CBD’ — he ‘crashed, burned, and died.’”

T.C. CANNON POSES WITH SOME OF HIS FAVORITE VEHICLES WHILE SPORTING HIS SIGNATURE UAB SHIRTS. PHOTO BY JULIANNA HUNTER.

UAB’s top cheerleader

Cannon is never spotted in public without a UAB t-shirt, the most vital accessory to his “total comfort” wardrobe that includes shorts and sandals. One sandal has a piece of cardboard inserted beneath his bare foot because one leg is shorter than the other. The result is an obvious limp that prompts his friend Billy Jett to note, “Terry walks like a duck.”

Cannon refers to UAB and the city of Birmingham as one. “The word ‘university’ itself defines a city and a college as one campus,” he explains while complaining about the University of Alabama board of trustees not giving UAB total autonomy, including lack of support for UAB’s beleaguered football team. He always refers to trustee Paul Bryant, Jr, and the board as “PBJ and the boys.”

“I am totally exasperated (by the system) and that affects my health, my resources, my family, the whole works,” says Cannon. “I’m not a liberal and I don’t want to divide the riches among the masses but there’s got to be a better way.”

He leans into my recording device and loudly emphasizes, “Throughout the recorded history of mankind, the strong must take care of the weak. Cannot be disputed. The only question is how to do it best. And it is my strong contention that what the (University of Alabama) board of trustees — which is the most powerful body in the entire state of Alabama — is doing is immoral and criminal, a simple violation of state law and they do it knowingly and willingly. And my favorite name for them is ‘The Masters of Malfeasance.’ The board of trustees do not intend for Birmingham and UAB to do anything that would in any way, form, or fashion compete with Tuscaloosa. It’s not a money thing, it’s an ego thing.”

T.C. and Politics

For the past decade Cannon has been known for running for mayor and city council on three occasions each. “He was always running (for political office). We used to gamble on how many votes he’d get,” says his old pal Billy Jet. “We had a (money) pot, whether it’d be for city council or mayor. People have won the pot by placing bets on T.C. getting anywhere from one vote to 29 votes!”

When asked if he plans to run for mayor of Birmingham again, Cannon hints that he’s frustrated because he wouldn’t stand a chance because those in Birmingham vote along racial lines. “Birmingham has no leadership and nobody’s telling the truth . . . 40 percent of our city’s population live at or below the poverty level because our leadership — our 1,518 preachers that eat good, a lot of chicken on Sunday and the whole works — why don’t they educate their congregations that our resources are going to Tuscaloosa (to the University of Alabama instead of going to UAB) . . .

“As for whether I’ll run for mayor again or not, I’m not a good speaker. Hitler was a corporal in the army but he was a good speaker . . . George Wallace was a good speaker.” If he runs and is elected, he doesn’t hesitate to share what his first act would be as mayor.

“To have Larry Langford dying in prison for what most of us politicians do daily is wrong,” Cannon says, laughing. “If I should ever become mayor, one of my first official duties will be to get Langford out of prison and bring him back to Birmingham, put a (location detection) bracelet on him, and he’ll work from daylight to dark for the city. And then he can go home at night. Langford’s got a brilliant mind. [My idea] is a no-brainer . . . I like Langford’s style of ‘do something.’ My favorite of his quips is ‘You can fix something but you can’t fix nothing … Let’s do something now,’ is what he is saying. ‘Whatever we do, if it’s wrong, we fix it. But if we don’t do nothing we can’t fix nothing.’”

Regarding presidential politics, Cannon says that the Democrats have got a difficult year ahead of them. “They don’t have a viable candidate and I think Trump, with his bodacious, infamous style, has really been healthy for the system,” T.C. says with reverence. “Several of the Republicans sound good, look good. But if I had to bet, it’d be Jeb Bush—who mumbles worse than I do—he’ll probably wind up with the nomination. But I am a Trumpster,” he admits.

Cannon has often consulted Birmingham Times publisher Dr. Jesse Lewis when running for public office. “I don’t know when I didn’t know him, it’s been so long. I met him because we have a mutual interest in UAB sports,” says Lewis. “He was one of the main reasons that UAB got a football team, because of his efforts. And not only are his efforts loyal to the football program, his efforts have been loyal to UAB (overall) ever since I have known him. If there has been one person who has ever made a difference at UAB, T.C. would be that person.”

Lewis laughs when discussing Cannon’s political aspirations. “He has always wanted to be a politician. And I have always discouraged him. Every time he has run for political office he has been by my office to sit down and talk with me,” says Lewis. “And I explain to him, ‘T.C., you’re too honest to be a politician. You stand up and tell the truth, and these politicians aren’t telling the truth. They tell you what you want to hear.

“Actually, he would make an excellent politician but he is not electable . . . I consider him a personal friend. He is one of the most truthful and dedicated persons you’d ever meet in your life . . . I told him if he runs for political office he has to buy a suit. I don’t think he owns a suit. I told him, ‘Don’t come back by my office and ask me to help you no more unless you buy a suit’  . . . If he runs for office in 2016, I’m going to buy him a suit.”

A few words with racing legend Donnie Allison.

In the early 1960s, three race car drivers relocated from Miami to Hueytown, Alabama, where they established themselves as the famous Alabama Gang. Red Farmer, Bobby Allison, and brother Donnie Allison routinely dominated the small racetracks across the Southeast. The trio eventually started winning on larger superspeedways and soon became bona fide racing stars. Despite not winning nearly as many races as his more famous older brother, Donnie Allison remains one of the greatest drivers ever, due to his versatility driving both Indy 500 open-wheel cars (no fenders, no roll cage, and no roof) and stock cars for NASCAR. Allison still brags that out of all the one-two finishes he and Bobby collected in the same race during their careers, he beat his older brother 80 percent of the time.

Behind the wheel, Donnie Allison was a force to be reckoned with. His friendship with driving legend A.J. Foyt led to Foyt providing him with a car for the 1970 Indianapolis 500, where Allison beat his boss to pick up a fourth-place finish his rookie year. The previous week, he had won the 600-mile NASCAR race at Charlotte Motor Speedway, the closest any driver has coming to winning both races. However, he’s probably best remembered for an end-of-race fight on the track with driver Cale Yarborough after the two wrecked on the last lap of the 1979 Daytona 500. It was the first NASCAR race to be televised nationally from start to finish. For many viewers across the country, fistfights and stock car racing were forever linked after that telecast.

Black & White: Do you still believe A.J. Foyt is the best race car driver ever?

Donnie Allison his blue and gold Chevrolet sedan in the early 60′s. (click for larger version)

 

Donnie Allison: Yep. Everything he’s ever got in, he’s won in. He’s mechanically inclined enough, he knows what to do when he needs something done. There’s a lot of good race car drivers: Bobby [Allison], Richard [Petty], Dale Earnhardt, Mario Andretti. But if you take everything that A.J.’s run and put all those drivers in those cars, the [pecking order] would probably be A.J., then Bobby, then Mario.

Do you agree that bringing the Indy cars down South to race on smaller tracks in the late 1990s was a boost that open-wheel racing had been needing for a while?

Well, to an extent. The problem with the Indy cars down South is that all the racetracks are banked [in the turns]. The banked racetracks are not suited for Indy cars, because those things are rocketships. So for them to run how they need to run, they need to be run with a stiff suspension. And if you don’t run that stiff suspension like that, it bottoms out and it grinds the bottom [of the car] off. I feel like we have good racing when a driver has to back off the throttle. When a driver can run wide-open, the racing is not as good. Look at Daytona and Talladega.

Some of the older drivers say that racing is not what it was in the old days. Do you agree?

Well, to a certain extent. Racing is still just like it always was. It’s a group of drivers out there doing their best to win. The difference is the technology now is so much greater. They have so much more to their advantage to getting their cars better tuned in. I feel like in the old days, more of the drivers were in tune to their cars than they are today. I think the ego part of driving in 1978 and ’80 was not nearly what it is in 2009. We had some that were ego driven. But if we didn’t run good, we wanted to find out what was wrong with our car, or what was wrong with us, why we couldn’t do it.

Was there more camaraderie among the drivers in the old days?

Oh, yes. There were groups. There were certain drivers that were friends and certain drivers that weren’t. I guess that’s probably still maintained. I don’t know, I don’t go into the driver compounds anymore. We didn’t have those. We didn’t have the big buses and the areas roped off. We went out in the parking lots and a few racetracks had designated places for us to park our cars. When we would get together, it might be that night for dinner or for a drink afterward. We didn’t do like they do now. They might have a cordial conversation with one another right after the race. And we didn’t have that.

Did you know Janet Guthrie [the first woman to earn a spot in the Indianapolis 500 and the Daytona 500, both in 1977]?

I knew her very well. I helped her. [Car owner] Ralph Moody asked me if I’d mind helping her. Guthrie never used the excuse of being a female. She never said, “They’re doing that to me because I’m a female.” But her car owner did, and it caused a little bit of rift, I think. It takes a gene [to compete successfully in racing] that I don’t think the women got. And I’m not a macho [type]. You watch [current Indy car sensation] Danica Patrick. She does an extremely good job until it gets to a lot of pressure there. And what I’ve watched and noticed about her is, when the pressure really gets there, for some reason or another, it appears that she gets out of there [abandons the confrontation]. Where, with men, they have a tendency to say, “Well, to hell with you, buddy. We’re gonna hang around here and see what happens.” That’s just my own personal thing. You take care of your equipment and you do the best you can to finish. When you need to be somewhere, you’re supposed to be there. It’s like that thing I’ve always said all my life, way back in the modified car days in Birmingham at the fairgrounds and at Dixie [Speedway] and all them places. I paid the same amount for my pit pass that [other drivers] did. So I own just as much of that place as they do.

I read a recent interview with Red Farmer where he said that he had an advantage because he was accustomed to running on flat tracks.

Well, I definitely believe that. That’s what I was saying about the cars handling better, about the chassis being better. If you could’ve watched Red Farmer run in south Florida where we were, it was amazing to watch him. He could run a car sideways faster than most people could straight.

Who had the worse temper in the old days, you or Bobby?

Bobby had the worse temper but I feel like he could control his more than I would mine. Me, when I lost my temper, they knew I lost it.

Do you miss driving?

Oh, yeah. Especially when I watch some of the things that go on now. I just don’t believe the guys get after it as hard as we used to. Look at the ball players. The football players don’t play as hard as they used to play, because they’re gonna get paid, regardless. The old guys used to get in there with broken fingers and broken noses, teeth knocked out, and what have you. Just look at the pictures of the old guys. It’s just like with us, it was a different era. I get a little bit aggravated sometimes when I hear some of the excuses the drivers today make. Because, to me, I’ve been there. I know. My motto is: “Don’t give me an excuse, give me a reason.” I can’t fix an excuse, but I can fix a reason. &

Donnie Allison will be inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame at Talladega Superspeedway on April 23.

July 14, 2005

he Porsche 250, the mid-season stop in the Grand American Road Racing series, returns to the Barber Motorsports Park July 29 through 31. The race features different classifications of sports cars—futuristic Daytona Prototypes and GT sports cars such as Porsches and Corvettes—competing at the same time over the Barber road course’s 2.3 miles of 16 twisting turns. This year’s race takes place during an off weekend for NASCAR, and rumor has it that a few NASCAR stars may join some of the multi-driver teams for a few laps.

 

Daytona Prototypes battle for position at the Barber track.

 

 

 

The Barber Motorsports Park boasts one of the most challenging (and lushly gorgeous) road circuits in America. Landing an event as prestigious as a Grand American series race has put Birmingham on the map as a destination point for sports-car enthusiasts—a culture that appreciates the fine art of maneuvering an automobile at breathtaking speeds through a maze of turns, alternately braking before flooring the accelerator. Fans brag that it’s much more of a sweet science than NASCAR’s flat-out but often-boring round–and round predictability. It’s kind of like comparing boxing to wrestling.

The Daytona Prototypes are quite a sight. Resembling a variation on Hollywood’s designs of the Batmobile, the sleek cars are like nothing the average stock car fan has seen. Despite their high-tech appearance, the Prototypes are not above banging fenders as they spin one another off the track, which ought to give local NASCAR fans a thrill. For more information, visit www.barbermotorsports.com or call 1-800-240-2300.

By Ed Reynolds

“It ain’t cheating if you don’t get caught” has been the unofficial motto of drivers and mechanics on the NASCAR circuit for more than 50 years. A related phrase, “If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t racing,” hearkens to the origin of a sport sired by drivers who developed their skills hauling moonshine (and eluding law enforcement) through the backroads of the Appalachian Mountains at 100-plus miles per hour. Cheating in a race car is as All-American as major leaguers hitting home runs with corked bats. Year after year fines are imposed, but cheaters simply say that others are infinitely more guilty of flaunting the rules. After paying slap-on-the-wrist fines, drivers whine all the way to the bank while plotting their next devious move.

At one time stock car racing may have been the sport of rednecks, but it was a bunch of innovative, scientific rednecks who skillfully souped up automobile engines allowing them to achieve the break-neck speeds for which NASCAR is revered. “Being creative is my job. If I’m going to get fined and penalized for being creative, then that’s just part of it,” said driver Jimmie Johnson’s crew chief Chad Knaus, just after his first major penalty three years ago. The following year, Knaus was busted for rigging a refrigerant near the fuel line (cooled fuel provides greater combustion— and therefore more speed—than heated fuel). In 1986, NASCAR inspectors found a metal box containing copper coils and dry ice in Sterling Marlin’s car; the device was chilling and shaking the car’s gasoline to create a high-octane martini.

This year, NASCAR suspended Knaus for two races when it was discovered after the March 13 race in Las Vegas that the winning car Jimmie Johnson drove was lower than NASCAR’s minimum height requirement. The suspension was later lifted after the car’s owner, Rick Hendrick, complained that the increased height was a result of mechanical issues during the race, yet not an intentional effort to break the law. However, Hendrick’s questionable tactics may extend beyond the racetrack. In 1997, he was found guilty of mail fraud, after which he was pardoned by Bill Clinton during the president’s forgiveness spree in 2000. This after Hendrick’s pal Hugh McColl, CEO of Bank America, donated $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation before writing a letter to the president on Hendrick’s behalf. Though the two-race suspension of crew chief Knaus was dropped, the $35,000 fine and loss of points for driver Johnson remain.

 

Fabled for his years running moonshine, Junior Johnson spent a year in prison in 1956 after he was caught hauling wood to his father’s corn liquor still. President Reagan pardoned him in 1985. (click for larger version)

 

In 1975, when Richard Petty was in desperate need of a caution flag (in order to lure the other drivers into a pit stop, thus allowing Petty to catch back up to the field), racer Buddy Arrington suddenly stopped his car on the high side of the track. The car was out of the way, so NASCAR kept the green flag out. Arrington then drove his car to a busier section of the racetrack and stopped. The caution flag promptly came out. Petty got his lap back and eventually won the race. Earlier that week, Petty had sold a car transporter (a complete portable mechanic shop that hauls the car from race to race) to Arrington, who was an independent driver operating on a shoestring budget. Speculation was that it was one heck of a sweetheart deal, and somebody still owed someone something.

Petty is reported to have once said that teams must learn to “cheat neat,” although there was nothing neat about Petty’s brother Maurice installing an oversized engine in the blue number 43 at Charlotte in 1983. At the time, the $35,000 fine was the highest ever levied. Petty, NASCAR’s poster boy, was embarrassed and fumed that he was only the driver; his brother Maurice was responsible for the engines.

Though some car owners say that taking away wins following rules violations is necessary to end cheating, NASCAR reportedly feels that this would only confuse and infuriate fans to learn that the winner on Sunday is not the declared victor on Monday. According to Vice President Jim Hunter, NASCAR remains committed to “the integrity of the sport.” The last time NASCAR took a victory away for rules violations was when it stripped Fireball Roberts of his Daytona win in 1955. Dale Earnhardt, Jr. spun out deliberately at a 2004 NASCAR race in Bristol to put the race under caution because he was about to lose a lap. He got busted when he bragged over the two-way radio to his crew that he did it on purpose. NASCAR was eavesdropping and fined him $10,000. Earnhardt later admitted that boasting on the radio was rather stupid. “What I did wasn’t necessarily the best plan. My mom even admitted that,” he said after the race.

During practice for the 1982 Daytona 500, the rear bumper on Bobby Allison’s Buick Regal had been inadvertently functioning as a parachute that trapped air, slowing the Buick considerably. Nothing could be done about the bumper because it was a “stock” piece of equipment, just like those on Regals purchased from showroom floors. Early in the race, Allison got tapped from behind and the rear bumper came off cleanly. Allison was then able to increase his speed and won the race. Afterwards, as rivals cried foul, he admitted that the bumper had been attached with a flimsy wire welder rather than with the usual heavy-duty welding machine.

Gary Nelson, currently the chief cop for NASCAR’s policing of cheating, was often praised for his skillful skirting of the rules when he served as Darrell Waltrip’s crew chief. Nelson used to flaunt the minimum weight requirement by rigging Waltrip’s car to unload 80 pounds of shotgun pellets onto the track as the pace laps were being run before the race. “If you don’t cheat, you look like an idiot. If you do it and you don’t get caught, you look like a hero. If you do it and get caught, you look like a dope,” was Waltrip’s philosophy.

The legendary Junior Johnson (immortalized in Tom Wolfe’s 1960s Esquire piece “The Last American Hero”) attached 100-pound bands of lead inside each wheel. On the first pit stop, he’d replace the wheels with conventional ones and suddenly be 400 pounds lighter. NASCAR soon learned to weigh cars after the race as well as before.

The reason NASCAR has such a thick rulebook is due primarily to the greatest racing mechanic ever, the late Smokey Yunick. Yunick, in turn, gave stock car racing a lot of rules to write. The mechanic claimed that he never really cheated, because anything not specifically in the rulebook was legitimate in his eyes. NASCAR rules stipulated that a gas tank hold no more than 22 gallons, but said nothing about the size of the fuel line. So Yunick installed a gas line that was two inches in diameter (everyone else ran a half-inch diameter line) and was also much longer than those of competitors. The line held an extra five gallons of gas. NASCAR limited the size of fuel lines the next year and began watching Yunick like a hawk.

 

Richard Petty called his 200th (and final) win on July 4, 1984, at Daytona Speedway his most memorable because President Ronald Reagan was in attendance. In 1996, when Petty was running for North Carolina secretary of state, he was charged with off-track shenanigans in a hit-and-run incident after he bumped another driver (whom Petty decided was driving too slow) from behind several times before passing him on a Carolina two-lane highway. All charges were dropped. (click for larger version)

 

At the 1967 Daytona 500, Yunick’s Chevy was actually a slightly smaller version of opposing Chevelles, making the car narrower and lower to the ground so it could slice through the air faster. The next year NASCAR mandated body templates so that stock cars remained identical in size to the production models. “As far as cheating goes, they’ll never stop it,” said Yunick. “There will always be some guy that’ll think of something that’s a little smarter than the average cat, but the reason there ain’t any more of it on a big scale is that the only way it can be done successfully is if only one person knows about it.”

In the greatest cheating story ever told (which Yunick always denied), NASCAR confiscated the fuel tank from Yunick’s black and gold number 13 Chevelle one year at Daytona. As he sat in the inspection area, inspectors chided him for nine rules violations. With supposedly no gas in the car, Yunick suddenly cranked it up and drove off, hollering over his shoulder, “Make that ten!” &

Aaron’s Dream weekend will be held at Talladega Superspeedway April 30 through May 1, featuring the Aaron’s 499 Nextel Cup Series race on Sunday. For more information, call 877-462-3342 or visit www.talladegasuperspeedway.com.