[Roy Bleckert]

DAD- drawing only 25 comments five years ago , this thread has 75+ in the past week, amazing !!!

[DAD]

Roy

Goes to show you that there might still be a little interest in Midget racing. The D2's have come a long way. Automotive motors and M/C motors continue to race well with one another. My only observation is that the race in both Georgia and Illinois were run by M/C powered cars. Like I said I do not think that M/C engines are the wave of the future however. The race in Georgia was won with luck, driving, being at the right place and the right time, and an engine that was so old that by Mini Sprint standards it would probably have a had a hard time even finishing up front at a weekly Mini Sprint event.

The reason that the M/C engines are not the way to go is they are getting more expensive and harder to find all the time and design changes are making them harder and harder to get into a car, and then you always have that cantankerous chain to mess with.

Auto engines have also come a long way also since the Ecotec was introduced. There are plenty of engines that would be very competitive out in salvage yards right now and they can still be bought for a reasonable price and raced without even a rebuild. If given a green light there are also a bunch of back yard engineers out there that could and would adapt one of these newer engines to a car and in a very short order the Old Ecotecs and M/C engines would be made obsolete just like the 5 valve Yamaha. The thing to realize is that obsolescence is now possibly a good thing. Who wants to or can afford to race a 30 year old engine design and continue to put expensive new parts in them all the time if they can buy a faster one that requires no internal work for a fraction of the cost of a rebuild and hop up by a custom engine builder. I probably have a half dozen or more ZX10 motors at home, all with the same picture window in each block. Rather than rebuild them I simply went out and bought the Next generation motor that was faster than the one I blew up. The cost of replacing the valves and bearings in my old blown up motor was more than a complete low mileage Ebay motor. Racers need to start thinking in terms of the throw away motor and get out of the old repair and rebuild mode.

Time to put her up for another 5 years or so now I guess. Happy racing Kiddo's>>>>

Honest Dad himself

[kendirt]

Originally Posted by DAD Roy Goes to show you that there might still be a little interest in Midget racing. The D2's have come a long way. Automotive motors and M/C motors continue to race well with one another. My only observation is that the race in both Georgia and Illinois were run by M/C powered cars. Like I said I do not think that M/C engines are the wave of the future however. The race in Georgia was won with luck, driving, being at the right place and the right time, and an engine that was so old that by Mini Sprint standards it would probably have a had a hard time even finishing up front at a weekly Mini Sprint event. The reason that the M/C engines are not the way to go is they are getting more expensive and harder to find all the time and design changes are making them harder and harder to get into a car, and then you always have that cantankerous chain to mess with.

Here again don't let facts get in the way of your story:

Pretty sure DuQuoin was won with an Ecotech.

An 06 R1 is more than capable of running to the front of any D2 race.

In what world is a torque tube + quick change less expensive, less maintenance than a chain and two sprockets?

Guys like you do more damage to this deal. Anyone who's not real technical and thinking about getting into this class reads threads like this and says "Whoa, looks like a cluster." When in fact it's pretty simple and inexpensive to race one of these cars if you've got your stuff together at all.

[DAD]

Ken

I apologize, Andy Malpocker in a Ecotec Midget won Du Quoin, some how I got in my head that Andy Baugh, the guy that ran second in a M/C powered car won. As far as chains go I guess You never tried changing gears on a Mini Sprint between the heat and main?

[SteveB31]

Dad,

Motorcycle engines are not hard to find, can still be found for $3k and under, and I can change a gear in less then 10 minutes on my Henchcraft by myself. Races 204 nights in Lightning Sprints and have lost one chain. Have 52 race night on current chain with multiple wins. Not very cantankerous in my mind.