NASCAR lately has handed out some stiff penalties to competitors for infractions. Yet the Bleacher Report tells us that among the top quotes in NASCAR history there is much evidence that rule-following may be the exception for drivers:

“If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin'” is an old NASCAR expression. Junior Johnson had this to say about his creativity when it came to building cars:

“I loved the game. Maybe I’d have four of five new things on a car that might raise a question. But I’d always leave something that was outside of the regulations in a place where the inspectors could easily find it.

“They’d tell me it was illegal, I’d plead guilty, and they’d carry it away thinking they caught me. But they didn’t check some other things that I thought were even more special.”

BR also cites driver Darrell Waltrip in 1976 after his team was caught cheating with nitrous oxide.

If you don’t cheat, you look like an idiot; if you cheat and don’t get caught, you look like a hero; if you cheat and get caught, you look like a dope. Put me where I belong.

Waltrip’s best story might be the time he was caught filling his car frame with BBs to cheat the weight test before a race. Because cars weren’t weighed afterwards he simply pulled a plug and all the weight would disappear on the track without detection. Unfortunately one day the balls jammed. The BBs sat in his car, keeping him at regulation weight, until Waltrip’s car entered the pit. Then, as he approached the other crews, the entire payload came free and pelted them.

That story comes from Popular Mechanics’ article called “The Greatest Cheats in NASCAR History,” which has many other examples:

• Fuel capacity: Yunick inflated a basketball in the tank during tests, then deflated it before the race
• Fuel capacity: Yunick quadrupled the 11 ft fuel line diameter to carry 5 extra gallons
• Aerodynamics: Johnson’s crew chief Knaus altered rear window angle
• Weight: Flock painted wood to look like metal roll bars

I especially like the fuel line cheat as Yunick argued the line was not technically part of the tank and therefore should not be included in measurement of capacity. Popular Mechanics also quotes a famous cheater who thought “stock” cars meant a challenge to make some stock “better” than others.

“It can be frustrating,” says Chad Knaus, crew chief for four-time champion Jimmie Johnson…. “But it would be more frustrating to give up trying to make our car better.”

I suppose you could excuse failure to follow a rule when a rule is first introduced. There might be confusion and not everyone would be able to interpret the same. That is especially believable when NASCAR found that almost no one passed:

To help cut down on cheating, NASCAR introduces body templates, which race cars must conform to, Prior to the Firecracker 400 at Daytona, 49 of 50 cars entered flunk initial tech inspection.

But that sad tally was decades ago in the 1960s, as reported by Something About Everything Racin’, which also retells a story of Petty’s winning engine. The cylinders apparently had wax in them before a race to pass inspection. During the race it melted so after the race the engine measured much larger than the maximum allowed; it went from just over 350 to 392 cubic inches. At the end of the race, despite all the penalties and warnings, it seems that the winners in NASCAR are cheating all the time.

The names of those caught skirting the rule book read like a “Who’s Who” in NASCAR history: Tim Flock, Smokey Yunick, Junior Johnson, David Pearson, Bobby Allison. Richard Petty, Roger Penske, Jack Roush, Ray Evernham … the list goes on and on, almost as if it’s some kind of badge of honor.

Indeed, the badge of hacking just has been bestowed to teams No. 14, No. 3 and No. 18 according to a NASCAR press release:

The No. 14 team in the Sprint Cup Series was found to be in violation of Sections 12-1 (actions detrimental to stock car racing); 12-4J (any determination by NASCAR officials that the race equipment used in the event does not conform to NASCAR rules detailed in Section 20 of the NASCAR Rule Book); and 20-2.1J (unapproved open vent hose inside of the car).

Imagine if computer security regulations had something like “Sections 12-1 (actions detrimental to stock car racing).” Actions detrimental to the industry? The FTC is probably the closest thing.

That vague catch-all 12-1 rule was really meant to help prevent fist fights and other unsportsmanlike behavior. Ironic, since some say the reason NASCAR became so popular in America was a 1979 televised fight.

Oh, and note the NASCAR typo. That should be rule 20A-2.1J. Is the fine removed if there’s no 20-2.1J?

Anyway, with all that background, I’m going to take a guess and say that the vent hose was intentionally routed inside to reduce air resistance. A fairly boring hack and the finding doesn’t seem to be an isolated instance.

The No. 3 team in the Nationwide Series was found to be in violation of Sections 12-1; 12-4J and 20A-2.1J (unapproved open vent hose inside of the car).

As fun as it is to read the infraction reports and the odd-ball excuses or theories of disobedience from the teams, it really just makes me yearn for something more meaningful in development and innovation — where’s the bump in the power to efficiency ratio we could all use?

It will be years before the IndyCar innovation trickles down into NASCAR, despite all the stories of cheating. I wish the car racing regulatory bodies would just speed up the process and let someone race a diesel again.

Now THAT was an impressive hack that translated directly to stock benefit.

At the recent Structure conference, a young woman who had just moved from the east coast to San Francisco boasted of her boyfriends’ addiction to “Vaping”. She showed photos of all the accessories he has been obsessing about, from batteries to different colors and patterns. A young man visiting from New York echoed her story and said he was happy to be spending money on hip new e-cigarettes.

The e-cigarette contains a nicotine cartridge in four strengths – 16mg, 11mg, 6mg and 0mg, compared with the 13mg in the average manufactured cigarette. One cartridge lasts for 300 to 350 puffs, or two days. It also has a battery that enables it to emit a mist of propylene glycol, essentially fake, fast-dissipating smoke, and light up at the end when puffed on.

My first reaction was that there should be a chip in the e-cigarette that captures data to be transmitted and stored. Big data should be collected from vaping immediately. I was thinking about all the health info that could be assembled quickly from these battery powered devices. Lung capacity, ingredients, amount of nicotine per second/minute/hour, draws per charge, particulate matter in external air…and trend-lines for everything.

My next thought was that they should be solar powered. Why aren’t they able to absorb sunlight as power? Standing in the sun with a stick in your mouth? Use the power right there. And for that matter why doesn’t the act of sucking air generate sufficient power? Hello, funnel turbine. Why are you sucking power out of the grid? Oh, that’s right. You want to buy accessories, I mean batteries. Got it.

Neither of them seemed to have a firm idea about the energy use, let alone health risks or harm. They said it’s “just vapor”. But the fact is not much data has been collected.

The man from NY listened to me, took a long drag from his plastic tube of toxic fumes and said “By Jove! My old man you might be right! Could a teeny chip really go inside this contraption to record data? I will go start a company right now on that idea!”

I wondered if they read the news from the FDA:

Dr. Mike Feinstein, a spokesman for the American Lung Association said, “People are inhaling some type of chemical vaporized compound into their lungs without really knowing what’s in it.”

[…]

Authorities don’t necessarily know what’s inside of e-cigarettes, but the FDA tested a small sample just a few years ago and found a number of toxic chemicals including diethylene gylcol – the same ingredient used in antifreeze.

The accessory feature can actually introduce additional risks. Obviously the idea of putting a battery between your lips can be harmful to your health.

Chief Butch Parker of the North Bay Fire District responded to the call. He said a faulty battery inside the electric cigarette likely caused the accident. Parker described the explosion as if Holloway was holding a “bottle rocket in his mouth.”

[…]

Parker said the explosion knocked out all Holloway’s teeth and part of his tongue. The event also set fire to the room.

For some reason all the unsubstantiated buzz and positive marketing around e-cigarettes just reminds me of the tobacco smoke enema.

By 1805, the use of rectally applied tobacco smoke was so established as a way to treat obstinate constrictions of the alimentary canal that doctors began experimenting with other delivery mechanisms. In one experiment, a decoction of half a drachm of tobacco in four ounces of water was used as an enema in a patient suffering from general convulsion where there was no expected recovery. The decoction worked as a powerful agent to penetrate and “roused the sensibility” of the patient to end the convulsions, although the decoction resulted in excited sickness, vomiting, and profuse perspiration.

If only exploding batteries and unknown other “toxic chemicals” could have been used for anal treatment hundreds of years ago; today we would know better and not bother with e-cigarettes. Then again, I guess I shouldn’t joke about them becoming a public enema. Given the nature of the young vaping proponents I met, they might be thrilled by the idea and interested only in new accessories they could buy or sell…

Update five years later (April 2017):

“Concerns explode over new health risks of vaping and find toxicity issues are real, especially among children:

Students as young as 12 or 13 are now more likely to vape than to smoke. Many are under the impression that because e-cigs don’t contain tobacco, they pose little risk to health. Wrong.

Over the past few months, research has turned up evidence that vaping can pose many brand new risks. The vapors mess with immunity, some studies show. “Smoker’s cough” and bloody sores have begun showing up in teen vapers. The hotter a vaped liquid gets, the harsher its effects on human cells. And a relatively new vaping behavior called “dripping” ups the heat. This threatens to intensify a teen’s risks from those vapors.

Evidence is mounting that teenagers in particular, susceptible to advertisers and social pressure, are being hit hard by harms in vaping:

It worries [Rob McConnell, internal medicine specialist at the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles] that vapers show some of the same lung symptoms as cigarette smokers. It also worries him that more teens are taking up vaping. E-cigarette use grew an astounding 900 percent among high school students between 2011 and 2015.

[…]

[Adam Goldstein of UNC] says it’s important to note that just because something doesn’t taste like tobacco doesn’t mean it is safe. Studies have shown that some flavor compounds in e-liquids (such as cinnamon extract) appear to become harmful when heated in an e-cigarette.

[…]

Now Catherine Hess of the University of California, Berkeley, and her colleagues have turned up traces of toxic metals in the e-liquids used in five different brands of e-cigarettes.

[…]

“The fact that vaping can deliver benzene levels many times higher than those found in the ambient [air] — where it’s already recognized as a cancer risk — should be of concern to anyone using e-cigarettes,” [Chemist James Pankow] says.

While many people cite the use of vaping as an intentional way to stop smoking, anecdotal evidence suggests the opposite. Vapers smoke more, and subject themselves to additional harms beyond just higher overall intake of nicotine.

Vaping in practice increases the frequency of puffs. While dosage of nicotine actually may increase through more frequent use (can choose masking scents, keep vaping device in pocket and breathe from it repeatedly and frequently, far more easily than with the complications of lighting tobacco leaves with flame) it is the new toxic metals and chemicals that scientists are only just beginning to document as additionally harmful.

Update seven years later (2019):

• April: Rite-Aid announces it will stop selling e-cigarettes in all stores
• August: Reuters reports the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified 193 potential cases of severe lung illness tied to vaping in 22 states as of Aug. 22, including one adult in Illinois who died after being hospitalized: “The severity of illness people are experiencing is alarming and we must get the word out that using e-cigarettes and vaping can be dangerous,” Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike said.