25 Facts About Smokey Yunick

Henry "Smokey" Yunick was an American professional stock car racing crew chief, owner, driver, engineer, engine builder, and car designer.

Smokey Yunick served as a pilot in the United States Army Air Corps in World War II.

Smokey Yunick participated in nearly every facet of the sport as a driver, designer, and held other jobs related to the sport, but was best known as a mechanic, engine builder, and crew chief.

Smokey Yunick was twice NASCAR mechanic of the year, and his teams would include 50 of the most famous drivers in the sport, winning 57 NASCAR Cup Series races, including two championships in 1951 and 1953.

Smokey Yunick was renowned as an opinionated character who "was about as good as there ever was on engines," according to Marvin Panch, who drove stock cars for Yunick and won the 1961 Daytona 500.

Smokey Yunick was with the 97th Bombardment Group of the 15th Air Force, at Amendola Airfield, Italy.

Smokey Yunick reported that he was then transferred to the war's Pacific theater following VE Day.

Smokey Yunick served on active duty as from February 1944 to March 1946.

In 1946, Smokey Yunick married and moved to Daytona Beach, Florida, because "it was warm and looked good" when he had flown over it on training missions.

Smokey Yunick prepared a Hudson Hornet for driver Herb Thomas for the second running of the Southern 500 in Darlington, South Carolina, which won the race.

Between 1958 and 1973, Smokey Yunick participated in Indianapolis 500 racing, his car winning the 1960 race.

Smokey Yunick's innovations included the "Reverse Torque Special" of 1959, with the engine running in opposite rotation than usual, and the Hurst Floor Shifter Special, a car with the driver's capsule mounted as a "sidecar" in 1964.

In 1962, one year after Art Malone set the world closed-circuit record at Daytona in Bob Osiecki's Kurtis-Kraft Indy roadster with two inverted wings, Smokey Yunick mounted a single wing on Jim Rathmann's Simoniz Vista Special Watson Roadster.

Smokey Yunick's racing career brought him into contact with representatives of the automotive industry, and he became Chevrolet's unofficial factory race team, as well as heading NASCAR efforts for Ford and Pontiac.

Smokey Yunick raced Chevrolets in 1955 and 1956, Fords in 1957 and 1958, and Pontiacs from 1959 through 1963.

Smokey Yunick started the car with no gas tank and said, "Better make it ten," and drove it back to the pits.

Smokey Yunick used such innovations as offset chassis, raised floors, roof spoilers, nitrous oxide injection, and other modifications, often within the letter of the rule book, if not the spirit.

Contrary to popular opinion, Smokey Yunick designed the first "safe wall" racetrack barrier in the early 1980s using old tires between sheets of plywood, but NASCAR did not adopt his idea.

Also, Smokey Yunick developed air jacks for stock cars in 1961, but NASCAR did not deem them appropriate.

Smokey Yunick was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1990 and the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America In 2000.

Smokey Yunick is a member of over 30 Halls of Fame across the United States and the rest of the world.

Smokey Yunick is the inventor of at least nine US patents.

Smokey Yunick wrote for Circle Track magazine and published his autobiography Best Damn Garage in Town.

Smokey Yunick had witnessed his friend Don Garlits' difficulties developing and maintaining a museum.

Smokey Yunick did not want either his family to be saddled with such a burden or a "high roller" to gain control of his reputation.