[Jeff Higgins]

The difference between Smokey and Grumpy was that Smokey won on a level playing field. They both cheated, of course, but Smokey was far more creative.

Grumpy only started winning in Pro Stock when he took advantage of a major rules change in the NHRA. Before he built his first small block Vega, running his oddball 331ci motor, the NHRA had the same weight rules for all makes and engines in Pro Stock. Seven pounds per cubic inch of displacement. Under those rules, the Hemi cars were unbeatable. Sox and Martin, Dick Landy, the Motown Missile, etc.

Then the NHRA changed the weight rules. Hemis remained at seven pounds per cubic inch. Big block Chevy "Rat" motors and Ford "Semi Hemi" motors were allowed 6.75 pounds per cubic inch. Wedge motors, like the small block Chevy, were allowed only 6.50 pounds per cubic inch. A huge, unfair disparity that soon lead to the dominance of cars like Grumpy's short wheelbase Vegas.

"Dyno" Don Nicholson tried a bit different approach, accepting the weight penalty (6.75 pounds per cubic inch) to run the canted valve ("semi Hemi") 351 Cleveland based motor in his Pinto. Gapp and Rousch (the same Jack Rousch of NASCAR success) did the same, but eventually discovered the advantage of the long wheelbase, and switched to a four door Maverick, of all things (affectionately known as the "taxicab").

The other thing Grumpy did, for the first time ever, was order a "body in white", an unfinished basic welded "tub", from Chevy. Everyone else was still buying complete cars from dealerships and converting them to Pro Stock cars. Grumpy essentially built a tube frame race car inside of an empty Vega shell. Much like BMW tried to do in GT racing 20 years ago, with their purpose built M3 tube frame race car built inside a welded up tub, which got banned pretty much before it was even allowed to race as a "GT" class car. Full-on factory effort, but Grumpy had done this 30 years earlier, in his own damn shop in Pennsylvania.

In contrast to ALMS and IMSA, NHRA was desperate to break the stranglehold that MOPAR had on Pro Stock. NASCAR did the same, by the way, by introducing different sized restrictor plates for the various motor designs, with Hemis getting the smallest, of course. So they let Grumpy get away with his tube frame race car inside of a Vega shell. Smokey, on the other hand, never caught a break from either USAC nor NASCAR, so he had to be far more creative in his cheating.

In the end, both were major players in a very "golden age" of American motorsport. There was still enough "wiggle room" to cheat at the highest level, and both did so unabashedly. One was relentlessly dogged by the organizations with which he competed, one was more or less encouraged. I loved watching both.