SMOKEY YUNICK and the INDY REVERSE TORQUE SPECIAL 1959

SMOKEY YUNICK and the INDY REVERSE TORQUE SPECIAL 1959

Indianapolis, 1959.

The most hallowed ground in American motorsport, where men risked everything for glory.

But one man didn’t just come to win.

He came to break the very soul of racing.

His name was Henry Smokey Unic.

And his secret weapon wasn’t just faster.

It was backwards.

This is the story of a genius who declared war on physics itself.

The bitter rivals who tried to stop him and the explosive truth behind a machine so radical it was almost banned before it even raced.

What if one man’s obsession changed racing forever?

And what if we were too blind to see it?

Like so many of Smokeoky Unix’s projects, the reverse torque special is surrounded in myth and legend, the outsider and the obsession.

To understand the rebellion, you must first understand the kingdom.

In the 1950s, the Indianapolis 500 was a high society affair dominated by a select few master car builders who held court like kings.

At the forefront was AJ Watson, whose Watson Roadsters were the standard issue for winners.

They were brilliant, elegant, and conservative.

They played by the unwritten rules.

The rule book was sacred, and stepping outside it was heresy.

And then into this polished world came Smokey.

Henry Smokey Unic wasn’t from the Indie aristocracy.

He was a street smart mechanic from Daytona Beach, a place far removed from the glamour of the brickyard.

As a former B7 flight engineer who learned survival in the skies over World War II, it wasn’t following protocols.

It was about improvisation, quick fixes under pressure, and outsmarting the odds.

After the war, he brought that same ingenuity to racing.

His laboratory was the best damn garage in town, a place where the rule book was seen not as a Bible, but as a list of suggestions.

In NASCAR, he was already a legend, a shadowy wizard who turned Hudsons and Chevrolets into unbeatable monsters.

Smokeoky’s NASCAR exploits were the stuff of legend, whispered in garages across the South.

Take for instance his 1955 Darlington race with a Pontiac that kept overheating under the brutal southern sun.

Smokey devised a hidden water tank under the driver’s seat connected by a secret valve.

Mid-ra, the driver could release cool water into the radiator, dropping temperatures without a pit stop.

Inspectors never found it.

It was pure undetected genius that kept his car in the lead.

Or consider his most infamous trick, the extra capacity fuel line.

In those days, NASCAR strictly regulated fuel tank sizes to ensure fair play.

Smokeoky got around it by installing 11 ft of coiled, oversized tubing as the fuel line itself, holding several bonus gallons without altering the tank.

When officials finally caught on during an inspection and demanded he remove it, Smokeoky calmly unscrewed the line, coiled it up, and walked away, leaving the now legal tank behind.

“If it ain’t explicitly in the rule book,” he’d say with a puff of cigar smoke curling around his words, “It’s fair game.”

His philosophy was simple.

“Rules were made to be tested, bent, and occasionally broken, all in the name of victory.”

He won over 50 NASCAR races as a crew chief and owner.

But his eyes were set on a bigger prize, the Indianapolis 500, where the stakes were higher, the scrutiny fiercer, and the establishment even more entrenched.

Indie was Smokeoky’s white whale.

In 1958, he arrived with the Hurst Shifter Special, a car that embodied his Daytona grit infused with Indie ambition.

It qualified impressively, turning heads with its speed and handling, hinting that this outsider might just shake things up.

But a trivial transmission failure forced an early retirement, leaving Smokey stewing on the sidelines as the established teams claimed the glory.

For a man like Smokey, it wasn’t a loss, it was an insult.

He wouldn’t return with a better car.

He would return with a different one entirely.

He began to obsess over a single fundamental question that no one else was asking.

What if everything we know about engine rotation is wrong?

On a high-speed oval like Indie, where every lap is a series of relentless left turns, a conventional engine rotates clockwise when viewed from the driver’s seat.

This creates a torque reaction, a twisting force from the spinning mass of the crankshaft, flywheel, and other components that tries to roll the car to the right, effectively lifting the left side off the ground.

That unweights the inside tires, the ones you need most for grip in those turns, leading to under steer, lost time, and potential spins.

It’s a bakedin flaw that every team accepted as the cost of doing business, compensating with suspension tweaks or weight distribution.

But Smokey saw it as an opportunity.

His radical solution was as elegantly simple as it was audaciously insane.

Reverse the engine’s rotation, flip it counterclockwise.

Now, that same torque would push the left side down into the track during left turns, increasing grip where others were losing it, planting the car firmer and allowing for higher speeds through the corners.

It was a theory born of a singular, brilliant, and stubborn mind.

And so from the ashes of his 1958 humiliation rose the reverse Torque Special, a roadster that didn’t merely compete.

It rebelled against the very principles of automotive design.

Building the beast, the conspiracy of genius.

The creation of the reverse torque special unfolded like a covert operation far from the prying eyes of the racing establishment.

Smoky Unic, Ever the Maverick, assembled a small, loyal crew in his Daytona Beach garage, working through endless nights to bring his audacious vision to life.

This wasn’t a corporateback-backed project with unlimited resources.

It was a grassroots effort fueled by ingenuity, elbow grease, and a healthy dose of defiance.

Smokeoky handpicked his team.

Lead mechanic Rudy Hooper, a non-nonsense veteran with years of stock car experience, a couple of young apprentices eager to learn from the master, and occasional help from local racers who shared his rebellious spirit.

They operated under a veil of secrecy, knowing that word of this radical machine could spark ridicule, or worse, imitation, from the indie insiders.

Tools were sourced from wherever they could be found.

Borrowed welding torches, scavenged parts from junkyards, and custom fabricated pieces hammered out on site.

The garage, with its chaotic charm, became a fortress of innovation, where ideas were tested, discarded, and refined until dawn broke.

Smokeoky began with a solid foundation, opting for a Curtis Craft 500H chassis, a proven design from the innovative mind of Frank Curtis, one of the most influential car builders in American racing history.

Born in 1908 in Crested, but Colorado, Curtis started his career in the 1930s crafting racers in California, quickly earning a reputation for lightweight, agile machines that dominated dirt tracks.

By the postw World War II era, his Curtis Craft Company in Glendale had become synonymous with indie success with his Roadsters claiming five victories at the 500 between 1950 and 1955.

The 500H model introduced in 1958 represented the pinnacle of his roadster evolution.

A steel tubular frame for exceptional rigidity, aluminum bodywork to keep weight down, and a wheelbase of 96 to 98 in for optimal stability at speeds exceeding 140 mph.

This particular chassis number 715 was unique even among Curtis designs.

It was the only one equipped with Dubane trailing arm independent front suspension, a sophisticated setup inspired by European engineering that allowed for better handling over Indy’s bumpy bricks.

Smokey acquired it secondhand from a previous entrant, a common practice in the budgetstrapped world of 1950s racing, where teams often recycled components to stretch their dollars.

Dry weight hovered around 1,550 lbs, making it a nimble platform.

But Smokeoky saw it not as a finished product, but as a canvas for his radical alterations.

He immediately set about transforming this blueb blood chassis into something unrecognizable to the purists.

Out went the sophisticated independent front suspension.

In its place, Smokey hammered in a solid beam axle, a relic from the dirt tracks.

To the Indie Elite, this was sacrilege, but to Smokey, it was about brute force weight transfer and simplicity.

The car was taking shape not as a refined racer, but as a mechanical brawler.

But the real heart of the conspiracy was the engine.

Smokey needed an offenhouser that spun in reverse.

Not a modified one, but one born that way.

He didn’t ask a local machine shop.

He went straight to the source.

Meer and Drake Engineering in Los Angeles.

The very keepers of the offenhouser flame.

This was no back alley hack job.

This was a custom order from the gods of speed themselves.

Engine number 210 was a mirror image offy.

The cam shafts were regground to opposite specifications.

The oil pump veins were reversed.

The distributor was rewired to fire in a counterclockwise sequence.

Even the water pump impeller was flipped.

According to legendary mechanic Louis Uner of the famed Uner Racing family who saw the engine, it was a piece of art.

You looked at it and knew it was special, but it also felt wrong like looking at a photograph negative.

The often engine stands as one of the most enduring and successful racing power plants in motorsports history, dominating American open wheel racing for decades.

Its roots trace back to the early 20th century, emerging from the innovative mind of Harry Arminius Miller, a pioneering engineer born in 1875 in Monomony, Wisconsin.

Miller, who began his career crafting carburetors, founded Harry A.

Miller, Inc.

In Los Angeles in 1911, where he developed high-performance engines for racing.

The foundational design of what would become the offy was penned by Leo William Gusen, a draftsman hired by Miller in 1919.

Gusen, born in 1892 in Iowa, brought meticulous engineering skills to the table, creating blueprints for inline 4 and 8 cylinder engines that emphasized lightweight construction, high revving capability, and robust power output.

These early Miller engines featured dual overhead cam shafts, DOC, four valves per cylinder, and aluminum alloy blocks.

Revolutionary for the era when most competitors relied on simpler flathead designs.

By the 1920s, Miller engines were winning at the Indianapolis 500, with victories in 1922, 1923, and 1926 underscoring their superiority.

However, Miller’s financial troubles led to bankruptcy in 1933 during the Great Depression.

Enter Fred Offenhauser, a German-born machinist who had worked for Miller since 1913, rising to become shop foreman.

Offenhauser acquired the tooling, patterns, and rights to the engines for a modest sum, establishing Offenhauser Engineering Company in Los Angeles.

Under his stewardship, the engines retained their core architecture, but saw refinements for reliability and production efficiency.

The classic offy 4 cylinder, displacing between 97 and 255 cub in depending on configuration, became a staple.

Supercharged versions fueled by methanol could produce over 400 horsepower with compression ratios up to 15 to1.

Key features included a cast iron or aluminum block, forged crankshaft, dry sump lubrication, and a centrifugal supercharger for boosted applications.

Often houseser’s focus on marine and aviation adaptations also influence the design, allowing for flexible configurations like reverse rotation, which involved mirroring components such as the cam shaft, oil pump, distributor, and starter motor.

World War II interrupted racing, but postwar the offie evolved further.

In 1946, Louisie Meyer, a three-time Indie 500 winner, 1928, 1933, 1936, and Dale Drake, an engineer with experience in aircraft components, purchased the Offenhouser name and designs from Fred Offenhauser, who retired.

Meyer and Drake Engineering based in Downey, California became the hub for Offy production.

Meyer handled business and customer relations while Drake oversaw engineering and assembly.

Under their leadership, the Offie achieved a legendary status, powering 27 Indy500 winners from 1935 to 1976.

The tool room engines, customuilt units for elite clients, were precision crafted in small batches, often tailored to specific needs.

Machinists ground cam shafts by hand, balanced crankshafts to perfection, and tested engines on dynamometers to ensure peak performance.

The Offiey’s adaptability was key.

It could run naturally aspirated for racing or supercharged for championship cars with displacements adjusted via bore and stroke changes.

Reverse rotation was a niche but feasible option in offy designs stemming from their multi-purpose heritage.

Standard rotation was counterclockwise from the flywheel end, but mirroring allowed clockwise spinning without major redesigns.

This involved custom grinding the cam shaft loes in reverse, flipping the oil pump gears, and adjusting the ignition timing.

Such configurations were common in twin engine boats or aircraft to counter propeller torque, but rare in automotive racing.

Meer and Drake’s records show occasional orders for reverse units priced similarly to standard ones since the modifications were straightforward for their skilled team.

The process ensured the engine maintained its torque curve.

Durability was paramount.

Offies were known for completing 500m races with minimal failures thanks to highquality materials like forged aluminum pistons and nitrided crankshafts.

Engine number 210 exemplifies this era of custom offie production.

Dale Drake personally supervised the build drawing on his expertise in precision assembly.

Born in 1910, Drake had honed his skills during World War II on aircraft engines, bringing that rigor to offy work.

His team, including machinists who specialized in cam grinding and block boring, assembled number 210 in early 1959.

The engine featured a 255 cubic in displacement DOC head with hemispherical combustion chambers and a roots type supercharger boosting to 1.5 to 2.0 atmospheres.

Output was estimated at 420 to 450 horsepower at 6,500 RPM with torque exceeding 350 lb feet.

Reverse components were meticulously mirrored.

The cam shaft was ground with inverted lobe profiles.

The Cintillaa Magneto distributor was adapted for clockwise drive and the oil system was reoriented to prevent cavitation.

When the engine arrived, the sheer audacity of it hit Smokeoky’s own crew.

His lead mechanic, Rudy Hooper, reportedly shook his head and said, “Smokey, they’re going to laugh us right out of gasoline alley.”

But Smokey just grinned around his pipe.

Let him laugh, Rudy.

We’ll see who’s laughing after 500 m.

The beast was complete.

A Curtis chassis with a dirt track heart powered by a backward spinning offy from the sport’s most revered engine builders.

It was a Frankenstein’s monster of racing, a symbol of one man’s war on convention.

And when they fired it up for the first time, the sound was unnerving.

It didn’t roar.

It whed with an otherworldly pitch.

The mechanics nicknamed it the wrongway Corrigon and Smokeoky’s spinning top, a testament to its bizarre topsyturvy nature.

The revolution was ready to roll and the establishment was waiting.

A Jay Foy Smokey Unic was the best mechanic there ever was.

He was always thinking way ahead of the rest of us.

Showdown at the Brickyard.

Rivalry and redemption.

The arrival of the reverse torque special in Gasoline Alley caused a schism.

The old guard, led by master builder AJ Watson, saw it as an abomination.

Watson, whose cars had won in 56 and would win again in 59, was the embodiment of the establishment.

He reportedly scoffed to a reporter, “Unix building a carnival ride, not a race car.

That thing will be in the wall by lap 50.”

The stage was set not just for a race, but for an ideological war.

Watson’s refined evolution versus Unix’s radical revolution.

Behind the wheel was the unflapable veteran Dwayne Papy Carter.

An 11time indie starter, Carter was the perfect pilot for such an experiment.

Experienced, calm, and trusted by Smokey.

In qualifying, the car’s potential shimmerred through the strangeness.

Carter clocked 142.795 mph, landing 12th on the grid.

It was respectable, but the car’s true strength wasn’t raw speed.

It was cornering.

Race day was brutally hot.

On the very first lap, chaos erupted in turn one with a multi-car spin.

While others scrambled, Carter and the reverse torque special sliced through the mess.

The reverse torque was doing its job, planting the left side tires and giving Carter a confidence in the corners that other drivers lacked.

Carter would later recount to a fellow driver, “It was the darnest thing.”

In the turns, you could feel the car settle where others were getting light.

It wasn’t pulling you out.

It was pushing you through.

Smokey had found a handful of grip no one else knew was there.

But then, Racing’s oldest enemy struck.

Attrition.

Not on Carter’s car, but on the car of the leader.

One by one, front runners fell out, and Papy Carter in his bizarre backwards engine car kept turning consistent, blistering laps.

He was moving up from 12th to 10th to 8th.

The Watson cars and the other traditionalists were watching in their mirrors as the carnival ride hunted them down.

As the checkered flag fell, it was Roger Ward in a conventional AJ Watson Roadster who took the victory.

But crossing the line in a stunning seventh place was Dwayne Carter and Smokeoky Unix’s reverse Torque special.

It had finished.

It had beaten dozens of conventional cars and it had utterly vindicated its creator.

The buried truth and the eternal whatif.

Seventh place was a triumph, a slap in the face to the establishment, but it was also the end of the road.

Why was Smokeoky’s revolution still born?

The brutal mathematical truth was this.

While reverse torque helped the chassis in the turns, it harmed the rear axle.

In a standard car, torque lifts the inside rear wheel, helping it bite.

In Smokeoky’s car, it pressed the inside wheel down, which could lead to instability.

The net gain was minimal.

As one unnamed rival engineer brutally put it, Smokeoky solved one problem by creating a bigger one.

It was a zero sum game of physics.

It was easier and cheaper to simply tune a conventional car’s suspension than to rebuild the entire rotating assembly of an engine.

The establishment, led by Watson, quickly dismissed it as a complicated trick.

Smokey, ever the outsider, moved on to his next rebellion.

The reverse torque special was dismantled, its parts scattered, its genius filed away as a curiosity.

But what if the truth is more explosive?

What if the real reason the reverse torque concept died wasn’t the physics, but the politics?

What if the establishment, terrified of an outsider rewriting the rules of the game, collectively decided to ignore it?

What if Smokey Unic was so far ahead of his time that the world simply wasn’t ready for him?

The reverse torque special proved one thing for certain.

On racing’s biggest stage, a car that ran backwards could beat the best in the world.

So, we are left with the most tantalizing question of all.

A question that echoes through the garages and history books to this day.

Dwayne Papy Carter.

The car was different, no doubt.

But Smokey knew what he was doing.

It had a grip in the corners that felt unnatural but good.

Conclusion.

What if Smokey had refined it?

What if a major team with real resources had embraced his madness?

Could the indie have been dominated not by the graceful Watsons, but by the brutal, brilliant, backwards thinking machines of Smokeoky Unic?

The explosive truth is, we’ll never know.

The greatest innovations are often not the ones that succeed, but the ones that show us a path we were too afraid to take.