RULES***RULES***RULES*** K. I. S. S.
Mini sprints have always been and I guess always will be a class devoted to entry level racers. There will always be new racers starting out racing a few years and then moving either up and or out. They all have dreams of that elusive first win and how they are going to feel and to some even how they are going to get up on top of that wing for their first wing dance. They may spend tons and tons of money on cars, shocks, air cleaners, alcohol conversions and custom built motor chasing that dream. When it does not come over night, they naturally thing that the guy doing all the winning is cheating.
What Mini Sprints need to prosper and grow is a new classy name and super quick way to tec the motors to find and get rid of these cheaters amongst us.>>>>>> Like the old coach would say "You guy's ain't keeping your eye on the ball!"
It would be wise to stop paying so much attention to motor specs and pay more attention to what really wins races. Some of these things might be**********
1. Driver experience and ability. Some are born to be drivers, some have been tutored by exceptional good retired drivers and others just work years and years to become winning racers. It doesn't happen overnight.
2. Car and driver weight. I have been preaching for years and years about what would be a fair weight for all concerned. Any race car is controlled by weight. In go karts they have gone so far is to have the class determined by weight. Light, medium, heavy, and really heavy or "pumpkin patch". Then they found out that the Junior classes were faster than the Seniors so they mandated restrictors for the carburetors to keep the kids slower than their dads. The same thing I understand is done with the "sidewinder Junior class".
Grown ups grow up different. Some are 100 pound jockeys and some are 250 pound football players. We have proven that driver experience can make up a lot for the extra weight but the guy just starting out does not have a chance. Since we weigh every race. Why not set the minimum weight at the average weight of the field of the previous year. I can hear those motor tec people crying as I type these words of wisdom. These are the same people that spend so much time sitting on the scales before the race getting it down to the last ounce. All weight should be in the form of a lead plate placed right under the drivers BUTT. Then we would not have to worry about .049 roll bars and thousand of dollars spent on Titanium Bolts. If you got the money to spend on these things "BE MY GUEST".
3. Get a Tire company to sponsor the group. American Racer builds a very good tire. I think they would be responsive to being a major sponsor if we could come up with enough race cars buying their tires.
I have had several talks with Ron Ambrose one of the winningest TQ drivers, and Mini Sprint owners in the mid west. Ron's IDEA a really hard spec right rear tire. My reply to him was won't that play right into your hand and give you a big advantage over the other racers, His reply to me was a "WINK".
Lets go a couple of steps further with the tire idea.
a. Also set up a minimum durometer reading to be taken at the time of weighing the car and driver.
b. Have the tire company install a bar code serial number on each tire. Require that the same serial number be used for at least 4 to 6 feature races. (Sticker tires are faster no matter the compound)
c. The tire company would publish the minimum price for each tire. and the race director would be responsible for keeping track of the serial numbers (a simple smart phone ap.)
d. The tire company should publish the minimum selling price for their tires and donate a percentage of the sale to the points fund for each group. The problem with most spec tire deals is the racers seem to think the promoter is making a huge profit on the sale of tires, some times true sometime not. Lets try to get rid of that idea and perhaps if done right we could even save a few percent in our tire bill.
Good Luck on trying to figure out a way to keep these little motors down to 200HP instead of 220HP. The motor cycle manufactures did not leave a lot of room for improvement on what is already near perfection. You guys can keep on looking for cheater motors, but I doubt if you ever find one. Those guys are usually racing a little further back in the pack.
Honest Dad himself
