We all agree that these four seperate winter indoor series are much more interesting than NASCAR, as they each put on one heckuva show, parking is simple, and its all rather cheap to attend. Whether it's the Rumble In Fort Wayne or Duquoin.
The problem is that they are ALL oval.
If NASCAR can repeatedly sneak in at least two road courses a year, I say so can we. The open-wheel Modified tour safely runs Lime Rock Road Course in Connecticut and the late Busch North Series ran Virginia International Raceway in Danville, but thats in the summer. With some ideas from road-ringers Boris Said and Ron Fellows, this idea isnt that far fetched. The ovals are a blast to race and keep us busy in the winter, but an indoor Midget road course would definitely put on a show at the Nassau or Hampton Coliseum.
A road course would be entirely different and not that hard to setup trackwise or carwise. Easy stepping stone for a LOT of kart guys.
New Jersey's AARN Series attracted Ken Schrader and Johnny Benson for their biggest indoor oval and the fans came to see Benson flip. Last year, Boris Said indicated he would showup for an indoor road course race if someone installed it
Thing is, You specifically specified Midgets. You know, Jacobs Ladder, Drag Link Midgets. One you'd ether have to go center steer or rack n pinion steering and Somehow stablize the rear axel. Winged Mini's the wings won't work on Right turns as well. Like I said, I can see Karts. Not much else in the open wheel world till you get into the rear engined stuff.
I applaud your thinking outside the box. You'd have to to run something like a center mounted, dual panhard bar meaning one to the right and one to the left on the rear end and probably something similar on the front just to keep both axles from walking back and forth. That would mean adding bars and or mounts to the frame. Just thinking of how it may work, I'd probably ditch the solid front axle and go with long lower arms and a cantilevered shock setup kinda like the Indy cars have to really help the front end roll all the way through the corners because unlike a kart, you wouldn't have frame flex to setup the car. You'd only have Ackerman to work with. By the time people would get the bugs worked out to get the cars fast, I think they would just resemble a midget frame shape. I'd probably go with a shaft drive with a mini sprint engine so you could shift it for better performance. Not knocking your idea and I'd love to see something like it but it might be a really heavy boat to make float.
CULVER CITY CA 1949 (Midgets competing on Culver City's road course. The track featured a hill that crossed over the track. The cars crossed over and under one another at that point)
SEBRING FL 1959 (Rodger Ward competing in a midget at the U.S. Grand Prix)
LIME ROCK CT 1959 (Rodger Ward in Ken Brenn’s Offy at the Formula Libra event in which he won)
Those pics are fine and all. Now we have raised left rail midgets and even staggered frames. Kurtis didn't 70 years ago.
I might have come off Harsh but IMHO you'd have to create a class of its own just for what is being proposed. You can take a center line fixed axle street car and do it. It's just not practical for a modern Oval track only car. I've even seen some Karts that had roll cages that could do it but Midgets, I wouldn't say its impossible but a major expense just to make it happen. You also have the matter of no LF brake and braking is a major part of road courses. sprints and midgets use em more to just set the car than actual severe braking to be used every second or two.
