I never thought I would be reading that people thought the lowly little Mini Sprint was such an awesome racing machine. I and several others have been saying it for years and now it seems to be common knowledge that "MINI SPRINTS ARE GREAT".
We have been racing Mini Sprints since the early 90's. We started with the 600cc Uprights. Most of these cars were powered by the then new and revolutionary Honda F2 motorcycle engine. This little engine was something else. Honda had taken a major jump in motorcycle design when it came out with that little engine. It produced 90 Horsepower with only 600cc's or 30 cubic inches. We used the same chassis and running gear as a full Midget. In fact our second car was a one off chassis built by John Godfrey then building the Stealth Midget. Basically a midget chassis with a smaller top frame rail. John was the perfect guy to build as Mini Sprint because before Stealth john actually worked for another chassis builder that built Mini Sprints I think it was Stallard.
At this time the big boys in Mini Sprints were the 1200cc cars. They on the otherhand were powered by the conventional cycle motors of the day the 1200cc Suzuki and Kawasaki. These motors were large and heavy and required a lot of Money to make them perform. The guys up front were spending thousands of dollars with people like Orient Express and Hank Scott, engine builders for drag racers to run up front. They were very short lived and the 1200cc cars were dying from the inside out. You could race a Midget for what these guys were spending on Mini Sprints.
We had raced or little cars with the AMSA 1200cc Mini Sprints a couple of times and always managed to run up front racing against them. When Jerry found out we were only 600cc's he asked us to please find someplace else to run and banned us from competing with them. The 600cc class was growing and the 1200cc cars were in decline.
In 1999 Yamaha was intent on becoming competitive in motorcycle racing. They introduced the R1 and R6 motorcycles. They were small compact and very powerful. We installed a R6 on our 600cc car and went on a wining streak. Allen Rupenthal of ERC Racing was racing with us then and took notice of the little Yamaha's performance.The 600cc class was still growing and the 1200cc cars were in trouble. Allen's profession was building Mini Sprints. He reasoned that if the R6 was such a game changer could the R1 do the same thing. He acquired an R1 Motor installed it into a 600cc chassis and left the 600cc cars to race with the 1200cc AMSA. The R1 was just as powerful for it's size as the R6 was. Allen began wining races and selling cars.
This move by Yamaha also caused Honda, Suzuki and Kawasaki to take notice, and soon the 1000cc pocket rockets were everywhere. The AMSA began a growing spurt supported by all these new 1000cc motors and the old 1200cc motors disappeared from the scene to be replaced by cheap very powerful 1000cc motors. The AMSA grew so fast that soon 30 to 40 cars were not an unusual site in the pits.
Success can also cause problems. Although a weight limit was set by the AMSA they had no scales to enforce the rules. Jerry Teague the owner of the AMSA finally invested in a set of scales. This did not set too well with Allen. At about this time Bill May another prominent figure in Mini Sprint racing decided he wanted to come out of retirement and wanted to start another group. There were enough cars to actually support another so why not. The MMSA was formed with Allen Rupenthal as Owner and Bill May Race director.
Now we have COMPETITION between the two groups. To build his numbers Allen actually rented race cars to racers that were thinking about racing. The two groups carried on all the time building numbers mostly because of the availability of inexpensive power plants. The cycle Manufactures were also competing each one took turns on producing the most powerful motors. We had an unlimited supply of inexpensive motors and the sky was the limits.
Not So>>>other uses for these motors were being developed. We first saw the Bandits small cars that looked like race cars of the 50's, then along came the Mod Lite small cars designed like the open wheel modified, then we had the Mini Stock cars NASCAR wana be's and finally the sport car guys came out with several 1000cc classes for road racing.
All this time the 1000cc Mini Sprints were growing and competing with one another for market share. In 2010 Jerry and the AMSA managed to get a race for the 1200 cars at the Tulsa Shootout a major accomplishment for the Mini Sprint Racers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf1nrUunvBI
We had switched over to the MMSA that year but wanted to attend, so we changed car numbers got a driver and gave him a fictitious name and home town and entered. The Shoot out is neat but it is 99% waiting and 1% racing. The Ecotecs were also there racing I think for the second year and there car count wasn't too good. I watched their races with my trusty stop watch and I'll be darned they were turning the same times as the Mini Sprints. I though at the time that the two classes would and could race very well with one another. We did pretty good at Tulsa and I came back home and made my first post on IOW stating that the two classes should combine for the good of both classes.
For the last 5 years I have been pushing the idea and finally it has come to be. They decided to incorporate with a National rule plan, maybe a good idea maybe not. For some reason rules by committee tend to get complicated and unenforceable and filled with unimportant gobbly goop that just muddies the water. Rules made by a concerned owner-dictator seem to be simple concise and easy to enforce.
We have now entered into a new competition between D2 Midget classes, Mini Sprints Classes, and then again 1000cc mini Sprints and automotive powered Midgets within the same class. I love "COMPETITION" it has a tendency to make things better, it keeps people striving to out do the other and in turn things improve. In the next few years the competition will continue and things will improve if we can keep competition engineers from going in and attempting to fix a problem that may only exist in their minds. We don't need regulator we need innovators.
"In my own humble opinion" the race group or race motor that comes up with the biggest bang for the buck for will be the winner and in doing so racers will eventually be the real winners.
Honest Dad himself
