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}} Henry "Smokey" Yunick (May 25, 1923 – May 9, 2001) was an American mechanic and car designer associated with motorsports. Yunick was deeply involved in the early years of NASCAR, and he is probably most associated with that racing genre. He participated as a racer, designer, and held other jobs related to the sport, but was best known as a mechanic, builder, and crew chief. 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. He 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. His trademark white uniform and battered cowboy hat, together with a cigar or corncob pipe, were a familiar sight in the pits of almost every NASCAR or Indianapolis 500 race for over twenty years. During the 1980s, he wrote a technical column, "Track Tech", for ''Circle Track'' magazine.〔For instance, ''Circle Track'', 9/84, pp.98-106.〕 In 1990, he was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame. ==Early life== A son of Ukrainian immigrants, Yunick grew up on a farm in Neshaminy, Pennsylvania and had to drop out of school to run the farm at age 16, upon the death of his father. This, however, gave him an opportunity to exercise his talents for improvising and optimizing mechanical solutions; for instance, constructing a tractor from the remains of a junked car. In his spare time, he built and raced motorcycles; this is where he got his nickname, "Smokey," derived from the behavior of one of his motorcycles. When the Americans joined World War II, Yunick joined the Army Air Corps in 1941, piloting a B-17 Flying Fortress named "Smokey and his Firemen" on more than 50 missions over Europe. He was with the 97th Bombardment Group (Heavy) of the 15th Air Force, at Amendola Airfield, Italy, before being transferred to the war's Pacific theater following VE Day. In 1946, Yunick married and moved to Daytona Beach, Florida, because "it was warm and looked good" when he had flown over it on training missions.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Smokey Yunick」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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