jjones752 (Offline)
#11
1/4/14 10:20 AM
Another thing to consider here is that in the earlier examples shown to prove "plausibility", Limerock is a dedicated sports car roadcourse, Sebring is a converted airport and the "road course" at Culver City took the midgets outside the quarter mile; the point I'm making is that the corner radii in all three examples are big enough that a solid-axle Midget would have a fighting chance of negotiating the turn. Indoors, the corners would have to be so tight on a non-oval that tire scrub would just about bring them to a halt. Karts can do it because they have no suspension and they're set up to pick the inside rear tire up in a corner. We get around left turns with copious amounts of stagger; ya can't change stagger from left to right in the middle of a race...
Jim Jones
Midwest Thunder Speed2 Midget #97
jjones752 (Offline)
#12
1/4/14 10:51 AM
For what it's worth, the Culver City setup wasn't really and over-under deal; in the first picture you can make out the outer loop and where it exited and re-entered the oval. The elevation change was presumably to clear the wall, but also perhaps to help free the cars up to get around the right turns; see second picture of Troy-boy "freeing her up" big time.
Note also that the road-course loop is clearly abandoned; probably because it just didn't work out all that well.
Jim Jones
Midwest Thunder Speed2 Midget #97
jjones752 (Offline)
#16
1/4/14 11:58 AM
That shot from the stands is probably the best overall view of the track I've ever seen; it shows the walls have clearly been removed so the elevation change was obviously just to add interest. This shot from the site your pictures are from is of a 500-mile (!) Midget race at Riverside Raceway in 1958, which I believe was promoted by Aggie and won by Allen Heath. I think there was alse a 500-mile Jalopy race and for sure there was a 500 miler for CRA Sprint Cars at Riverside which I remember was televised on Channel 11 in LA because I watched it at age 6. I think it was announced by Walker Edmiston, who was a local TV personality (and later the voice of Ernie the Keebler Elf) and amateur SCCA Sports Car chauffer.
Jim Jones
Midwest Thunder Speed2 Midget #97
jjones752 (Offline)
#18
1/5/14 10:30 AM
Originally Posted by ARCA91:
Oh its do-able, and they beat us to the punch. I knew they take winged sprint cars from Winchester Speedway (dirt)and run them at Summit Point Road Course on Sundays, but that's West Virginia for ya. I had no idea CRA Sprints ran Riverside!
I'm pretty sure it was a one-time deal for both the Midgets and Sprints on the road course, but CRA ran several times on the half-mile oval that consisted of the road course's infamous Turn Nine and a mirror-image connector that's indicated by the dotted lines on the map. Incidentally the map makes the resulting oval look decidedly paper-clippish; I don't think it's to scale. And, the "club circuit" was never built.
Regarding the possibility of AARN running right and left turns with radical-offset TQ's, that could get REALLY interesting...
Jim Jones
Midwest Thunder Speed2 Midget #97
jjones752 (Offline)
#20
1/6/14 5:45 PM
I don't think you noticed the tongue in my cheek; by "interesting" I meant "really dicey" negotiating a right-hand turn, what with all that left-side weight bias.
But hey, what do I know? If Don (whoever that is) and his "lefthander" and "interchangeable midget" (whatever they are) wanna give it a shot, I say more power to 'em. Just make sure you post the videos on here...
Jim Jones
Midwest Thunder Speed2 Midget #97