Midgets
 

Where were all the midgets that should have been at Eldora?

Re: Midgets
 

That is about what I expected. Big tracks are tough on little motors.

I took a Eldora first timer with me Saturday.
He’d ask how many midgets could he expect, I replied 20-25.
I gotta tell you, I’d pay again to see those 20 midgets battle it out at Eldora again.
I’d been somewhat critical of Eldora the last several years.
I gotta say I was very impressed with every aspect of how that event was ran. If Eldora is ran like it was Saturday, I’ll be back sooner than later. BTW the Eldora newbie I took was completely impressed and looking forward to returning.

I’ve got more to say about the 4 Crowns but I want to make this statement first and let it sink in a minute. The best part of my weekend was giving Brent T Funk a hug. After all he’s been through and his unexpected appearance, Made my weekend!

Re: Midgets
 

Midget count was better than some recent years. However the Winged sprint support was pathetic. Especially for the All Stars only appearance at Eldora.


NW Sprint and Champ support. Excellent

I wouldn’t call a full field pathetic especially with atomic running & lernerville running WoO. With Eldoras reputation about motors I was surprised they had 24

Re: Midgets
 

Great news!!!! :)

Re: Midgets
 

What was so pathetic about it?

Re: Midgets
 

Yep, they kept a big program running efficiently. I only watched on on DIRT & FLO, but it got done at a reasonable hour..... unlike my one live visit, when they worked the track for an hour (or 2?) before features

It seems there are always complaints about Eldora whether it is too dusty or the program takes too long. I have attended several 4 Crown events and enjoyed every one of them, even the 24 hours of Eldora many years ago. Yes, dust has been a problem at times but the track is such an iconic place that for me it is always fun. I live in FL now and just can’t make it to the Midwest for many events but hope to return for another Eldora event or two before I leave this earth.

Re: Midgets
 

I was very happy to trade the All-Stars B-main for a USAC sprint car C-main. :8:

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I enjoyed watching on PPV this year & the one time I attended. I'm not complaining, they did a great job this year. The time I went, I kept falling asleep during Silver Crown A Main & decided to leave before it was over so I wouldn't fall asleep at the wheel.... no big deal, I saw plenty of good racing :6:

Atomic, $3000 to win
Fremont weekly show.
WoO at Lernerville.
Big motor track, some teams don’t want to run.
End of the season with some cars out of money or broke in some way, good car count at 24.

Re: Midgets
 

To put this thread back to it's original question, I too was surprised to see only 20 cars participate. And it caused me to do what I do in the off season (we may race 1 more time, weather permitting, but it's pretty much "off season" for us...), and that is to over analyze data, looking for some meaningless answer.

Of the dirt events on the USAC Midget National schedule prior to the 4-Crown Nationals, 21 drivers and 19 cars have made at least half the shows, and 13 cars and drivers have made almost every show. Of those 13, only 1 didn't participate at The Big E.

Of the USAC top 25 National Midget points drivers, 9 didn't participate.

2 of the participants appear to be in "one off" deals for Eldora only.

Only one other USAC National Midget show had as low a car count (20). Curiously it was the Kokomo GP over the April 30th - May 1st weekend. No national show has had fewer than 20 cars take time.

POWRi did not have a national event scheduled against the show, and in fact, of the POWRi top 25 points drivers, the points leader along with 7 other drivers participated.

What you didn't see was the multitude of local, regional, and part time drivers & cars that come out for Indiana Midget Week or the BC39. Again, maybe it's the track size, or maybe it's the payout? At $40k for a "fresh", used, national engine, can everyone with a midget afford to chew it up running Eldora? Apparently not, but I would have thought that SOME of these cars would have been willing to be field fillers, if for nothing more than to say "I raced the 4-Crown". 70 cars came to The Dirt Track for the BC39.

That said, was the racing worse because there were 50 fewer participants than at the BC39? Not likely. But at some point, the Midget Crown of the 4-Crown could find itself in the same jeopardy as the Belleville Nationals and Hut 100 if something isn't done to boost car count, at least a little...

Re: Midgets
 

Pretty much the same this year as it's been for several years now.

4-Crown Midget Car Counts:
2009: 21
2010: 19
2011: 19
2012: 17
2013: 20
2014: 18
2015: 21
2016: 25
2017: 18
2018: 24
2019: 20
2020: No Race
2021: 20

That’s somewhat distressing.

Re: Midgets
 

In the past I would of said yes, Size of track, hard on motors but past ten years. I've seen video in car from Tmez that never has him past half throttle on the straights.

Think it's more purse and time of year as it's placed right around several big paying races although the Midgets were always the least supported at the four crown.

Re: Midgets
 

Just like you can't judge the growth of midgets on the Chili Bowl, you cant judge the death of midgets at Eldora. There is a real reluctance of midget drivers to run on the bigger tracks. While some people may say it is about straining the motor, I truly believe it is a comfort/safety factor.

For both POWRi and USAC, when they travel to any track larger than a 1/4 mile, they have a hard time getting a large field.

I once asked a driver who gets in a sprint and SC at Eldora if he would have a midget ride for the 4 Crown. He paused and looked at me and said “I am not sure I want to get in a midget at Eldora”. He could have a ride if he wanted, I am fairly confident of that, so perhaps there is truth in the safety factor.

Re: Midgets
 

One thing about USAC and POWRI that is troubling is that they basically share the same teams back and forth. Whichever group is running that night that's where the teams go. We need growth in Midget racing not this shuffling of the same teams back and forth. If you want to grow Midget racing it needs to be done outside of USAC & POWRI. You need local organizations run in regional areas with rules that cut the costs for the guy that works 40 hours a week. There is a reason USAC only brought 18 of their regular cars to Angell Park and on the same night Badger had 35.

Re: Midgets
 

Very much so.
Let's look to Rico Abreu for an example: I'm pretty confident that his nasty accident in the midget portion of the 4 Crown put an end to his outdoor midget racing exploits, by choice. (And possibly his maniacal prowess behind the wheel of a winged sprint car. :39:)

Re: Midgets
 

That's kinda like saying that NASCAR needs local tracks to start running Cup cars as a class to bolster the national series, IMO. But NASCAR doesn't need that to happen; they have a beautiful feeder of myriad late model stock car tracks from sea to shining sea. The USAC National Midget Series has that too, but obviously, not to the extent of pavement late models. Badger Midgets are one of them. Even way up in the northwest nook of the continental United States at Skagit Speedway you can find a "feeder" midget class.

USAC Midgets is to midgets as IndyCar is to American formula racing- the comparisons are many. They are both the top series of their niche, while both see support from various underling series' of lesser equipment, lesser financial commitment, and lesser talent. In neither of these two top dog series' can you run the exact same equipment you ran in a lesser series. And both of these top American open-wheeled series feature roughly the same types of car counts, averaged out in a long-ish view, while both have premiere events where car counts soar (It's crazy the lure that IMS has on open-wheel people, isn't it? BC39/Indy 500).

Re: Midgets
 

Your comparison made me think even further about the similarities and I thought about USAC National Midgets and POWRi National Midgets compared to CART formula racing and INDYCAR/IRL formula racing. The obvious difference here was that CART and IRL didn't play nice together with regard to scheduling or rules. You couldn't race your formula car in both series, but you can run your "National" midget in USAC and POWRi.

I really hadn't looked at this prior to this thread, but Mr. Ray is right, several of the teams are running both series, and because USAC and POWRi are helping each other out with the scheduling, those teams are competitive in points in both. A quick study of the schedules reveals that of the 40 or so races each has on their respective schedules, only 6 overlap. That's pretty amazing! When I first looked at the Eldora field, I really expected the quick and easy answer to be "well, POWRi scheduled against the 4-Crown, so they siphoned off car count", but that wasn't the case at all.

So maybe that's a lesson that motorsports has learned. Play nice together. Share similar rules where you can be competitive in both series without having to run a complete second car/team. And then, maybe both sanctions can benefit from each other instead of beating each other up. AND, if teams want to run an aggressive schedule, they can run both series and be competitive for season points.

Re: Midgets
 

We will agree to disagree on this one. POWRi and USAC are still battling with each other. The fact that there were only 6 conflicts was more due to dumb luck than them working together. In the years past, it has been worst. The race at Angell Park that Ray mentioned with the 18 USAC cars was one of the conflicts with POWRI racing at Lake of the Ozarks.

Also, in the last two years, Sweet Springs tried to run a co-sanctioned event but the POWRi and USAC rules are not exactly the same and a work around was not reached. They ultimately dropped the POWRi sanction.

Finally, as long as POWRi and USAC continue with their current car counts, I do not want to see them change their rules. There is nothing wrong with the national series to have different rules than a regional series. There is nothing wrong with the national series being the cream of the crop. Not everyone can run a World of Outlaw sprint car. Not everyone can run a national midget.

Re: Midgets
 

[QUOTE=Jonr;544958]
"....POWRi and USAC rules are not exactly the same...."

Just as a fan and out of curiosity, what are the diffenences?

Re: Midgets
 

[quote=The Old Coyote;544959]Main difference is USAC has a rev limiter rule based on the engine you are running and POWRi does not.

Re: Midgets
 

Let's take Rico for example. He drove a KKM midget both nights this year during the WoO Ironman 55 at I-55 Speedway in Pevely, MO during the first week of August 2021. Saw it with my own eyes. He just won the All-Star portion of four crown on Saturday night so can still wheel a sprint car fairly well.

Re: Midgets
 

[quote=The Old Coyote;544959]The only difference that matters is USAC at 1035lbs with driver and POWRI at 1050lbs with driver.

However, POWRI also allows certain engines to run a lot more cubic inches (Gaerte block engines at 177CID, Mopar block engines at 171CID and Fontana engines at 179CID) but very few if any people have taken advantage of it. I don't quite understand how they think the block is the only thing that matters. All someone has to do is redesign a new Mopar head and run at the 171CID and you have some upset SR-11 and Toyota owners. However, POWRI never checks an engine anyway so I don't know why they even make cubic inch engine rules.

Just a note here, the Mopar block, unlike the Gaerte, has a short deck height allowing it to run a short stroke big bore combo. The varying bore and stroke combos, ever changing cubic inches, canted valve heads, etc etc have been an issue for Midget racers for years. It ultimately allows for obsoleting engines. By comparison WoO Sprint Cars dictate your bore, stroke, rod length, and head design. The World of Outlaws are actually far more restrictive than USAC Midgets and yet run for a heck of a lot more money. Oh and a USAC Toyota Midget engine costs just as much or more than a WoO Sprint Car engine and you only get 4 cylinders instead of 8!

The new Badger engine rules take care of most of these issues. We don't dictate engine design but ultimately everyone defaults to a DOHC engine due to the advantage of the four valve heads. We dictate it must be an OEM engine (head, block and crank) which limits the bore and stroke to a specific range (due to the tight bore spacing of OEM engines and the fact you must run an OEM crank). Our cubic inch limit is the same for all engines which eliminates engine manufacturers constantly begging for more cubes to keep up with the latest engines to come out. The end result has been engines for 50-70% less than the purpose built engines and a car count of 35 without any support from any other series and lap times virtually the same.

Re: Midgets
 

[quote=opnwhlmnd;544962]POWRI shows a rev limit in their rule book. 8700 for pushrod engines and then various for other designs.

Re: Midgets
 

That's news to me. Thanks.

Re: Midgets
 

[quote=Ray3;544964]So, I hear about the weight rule every year around the Chili Bowl and how the cars go on a diet because there is no weight rule, and in fact there are specific cars built only for the Chile Bowl to take advantage of the no weight rule.

However, I have never heard about a USAC or POWRi driver being DQed because of weight. With the WOO, you will hear a driver gambled and missed weight or had a brain fade and didn't go to the scales. You also see them go directly to the scales before they go to Victory lane. I always remember the midgets going directly to victory lane. Am I misremembering or do the weigh the cars differently?

Re: Midgets
 

[quote=Jonr;545001]
I don't know how USAC and POWRI enforce their weight rules anymore. I know USAC at one time weighed every car after qualifying. I personally saw Bobby East DQed after qualifying at Angell Park for being lightweight but that was years ago. Part of the reason you may not see anyone DQed is the minimum weight rules today are so low in POWRI and especially USAC that they are hard to attain. They used to be 900lbs without driver. Today they say 1035 and 1050 with driver so to me they are telling us they expect the drivers to weigh 135-150lbs which seems too light to me. By contrast, yet again, WoO Sprint Cars recently increased their minimum weight rule.

In Badger they purposely require a minimum 1100lbs w/ driver to discourage ti and carbon parts and to help the guys who weigh 175-200lbs (the average for men). They weigh the top 5 from the heats and top 4 from the A-Main. However, you are correct that they do it after the victory lane celebration.

It's probably a safety thing.A midget goes pretty damn fast at Eldora and they aren't that big. Lawrenceburg Speedway usually gets the lowest car count during Indiana Midget Week and you can make the same case.