MMSA 40 Strong in Opener
 

40 different drivers participated in the MMSA season opener!


MMSA SEASON OPENER RECAP

The 2016 season opened this past weekend with a multitude of excitement and action.
It's started Friday night at the famed Bloomington Speedway supporting the USAC Sprints, the red clay hosted 33 topless MMSA Lightning Sprints. The MMSA hosted a very full field with many new faces from near and far, some racers traveling up to 6 hrs to be apart of the Premiere Support Series.

Heat race action proved to be eventful as many drivers felt the pressure to make it to the feature event. With overturned cars and red flags, all drivers left uninjured. When the smoke cleared 16 racers were locked into Fridays main event. The B main filled the remaining (4) positions to give the MMSA a full field of 20.

Illinois Brandon Smith (11) led the field to green on the inside of Ohio's Rod Henning (10h) Henning would take the advantage on lap one and never look back, despite some late efforts from Martinsville Colin Parker (4), Henning went widely unchallenged to the first MMSA win of 2016.

Bloomington boasted 33 non wing Lightning Sprints

FEATURE
#10h Rod Henning
#4 Colin Parker
#1L Lynn Ambrose
#11 Brandon Smith
#11x Cory Clay
#1x Scott Bradley
#23s Brad Strunk
#11a Colin Ambrose
#10d Drew Dorsett
#14 Jake Hodge
#4x Bradley Ashford
#17 Dylan Moan
#50 Daniel Henderson
#83 Caleb Faulkner
#76 Keith Arvin
#18c Cindy Chambers
#27 Frank Hartgraves
#21 David Woolston
#00 Cory Meadows
#20 Chayse Hayhurst

HEAT WINNERS
Heat 1 ( 1 - Lynn Ambrose )
Heat 2 ( 10d - Drew Dorsett )
Heat 3 ( 10h - Rod Henning )

The Premiere Support Series then traveled to the historic Brownstown Speedway this time with the wings!

The speeds were higher Saturday night as was drivers confidence!

Brownstown had 27 winged Lightning Sprints

Indianapolis driver Danny Fitzgerald went to the top late Saturday night to get by Collin Miller (2m) to earn his first feature win!

Brownstown Speedway Official Results

27 Entries

FEATURE
#88x Danny Fitzgerald
#2m Colin Miller
#1x Scott Bradley
#10c Chris Baumeyer
#23s Brad Strunk
#15 Dave Dorsett
#4 Colin Parker
#20k Tyler Kendall
#21b Ryan Barr
#1 Lynn Ambrose
#7 Kevin Rice
#22 Mark Horning
#50 Daniel Henderson
#11 Brandon Smith
#14 Kyle Hathaway
#14L Jake Hodge
#00 Cory Meadows
#4x Bradley Ashford
#5 Brent Fordice
#10h (DQ'd) Rod Henning

HEAT WINNERS
Heat 1 ( 1x - Scott Bradley )
Heat 2 ( 15 - Dave Dorsett )
Heat 3 ( 21b - Ryan Barr )

Why was Henning DQ'd.

Missing 5th gear. Tech is random so they didn't tech gear box Friday night. Teched it Saturday. He said it was there but they couldn't find it. They offered to tear it down and check it but he wouldn't let them pull it apart.

Should have 6 working gears. I overheard they could only get 4 gears. Yes, most guys only use 2nd or 3rd gear to race in, but the rules say you must have a FULL, stock, working gearbox.

Yep. Lost about 7 lbs of rotating weight out of the gear box taking 5th-6th out of it. Huge advantage.

With that driver weight won't matter if that is what comment suppose to be. Henning one of the best if not the best mini sprint driver around. Woke up a sleeping bear. Better hold on going to get interesting.

Re: MMSA 40 Strong in Opener
 

Probably a bent shifting fork or nicked up shifter drum. ;)

There is no real advantage to removing gears, if they are not engaged and pulling there is very little power lost to friction. The friction happens when you put them under a load. I would classify this as an old wives rule (stupid). Removing the two gears would net maybe a pound and a quarter and no Horsepower gain. Just My Own Humble Opinion.:D

Honest Dad himself:6::6:

Right. Let me know how the D2 racing is going.

He won it .. They just was looking for a way to DQ him. No advantage to remove any gears you gain that much weight in mud in the wheels that's more rotating weight than 2 gears. He is just very good at locking a car down that's why he wins races not because they claim his transmission is missing gears common....

I have never understood this rule. Who cares how many gears are in the tranny? I do not get that rule at all. Let em race

The rule stands, because it does make some difference. This issue has been rectified with the car owner and the competition director and it is time to move on. We at the MMSA strive to make the playing field as even as possible and although some may not understand why we have the rules I'm fairly certain the 40 plus cars that raced with us this past weekend do. I am also certain they appreciate us upholding those rules. The driver in question will return and I'm sure he will be successful, no one is taking that away from him.
As we have written in our rule book racing with this great series isn't a right it is a privilege, if you don't agree with operational specifications of the series then you do not have to participate.

See you at the races!

Re: MMSA 40 Strong in Opener
 

Originally Posted by SteveB31:
I have never understood this rule. Who cares how many gears are in the tranny? I do not get that rule at all. Let em race

Steve

The rule originated I think up at 35 Speedway in Chillicothe Ohio. Tony the owner had a neat and very efficient way of teching the cars. He would bring the top 4 cars into an impound area. We would raise the cars off the ground, remove a spark plug and disconnect the fuel line at the carb. He would then Pump out a fuel sample and check it. Then he would check the bore and stroke and last but not least he would then check the trans for all the gears weigh them and move them out. We didn't do that at any other track that we ever raced at.

But the problem is Right Now this is the rule and that means you have to play by the rules no matter how dumb you may think the rule is and these guys knew the rules.

Honest Dad himself:6::6:

As much as y'all want to argue stock is stock. That's what it means. If we wanted to modify these cars we would call it D2 and get blown out of the water by ecotechs. And Suzuki as far as your grammar goes, your intelligence seems to match it.

A lot of us use to take gears out in the old days, when it was legal. Trust me, it made a difference. It is a good rule IMO. Many folks today don't work on their own motor. Keeps people from having to spend money to not feel disadvantaged. The results would have likely been the same even if the gears were in place. A DQ is a bad deal for everyone, but has to be done.

Re: MMSA 40 Strong in Opener
 

"Many folks don't work on their own motor"
That's one of the reasons why racing got out of hand, nobody works on their own motor. (if they did they would know they were working on a engine)
Its too late to go back now, most everyone is technically stupid these days. Too uninformed to do something as easy as removing a couple gears.
If you cant buy it at the store it's pretty much illegal.
If the rules say you need all your gears, there you go. Thems the rules. I couldn't race my car there Its a two speed.

Re: MMSA 40 Strong in Opener
 

I guess keeping all of the gears in the transmission is part of keeping things stock. It's been the rule since I started racing in the mid 90's.

Re: MMSA 40 Strong in Opener
 

Originally Posted by rightfootrampage:
As much as y'all want to argue stock is stock. That's what it means. If we wanted to modify these cars we would call it D2 and get blown out of the water by ecotechs. And Suzuki as far as your grammar goes, your intelligence seems to match it.

At least at US 24 we had 5 cars 2 cars bike powered 1 was me, 1 Ecotech, 1 Quad 4, and 1 TQ in both heat and main it was the bike powered cars I came 2nd in both heat and Main with a 05 GSXR 750 1st was some 1000cc. In the Heat the 1000cc car dusted us all and the other 4 of us had a good battle until the Ecotech's throttle stuck wide open. In the main I was able to keep up with the 1000cc car until it just got to tight for me and I was about a straightaway ahead of 3rd but that was a 1/8th mile track.

Re: MMSA 40 Strong in Opener
 

Originally Posted by hoscalecody:
At least at US 24 we had 5 cars 2 cars bike powered 1 was me, 1 Ecotech, 1 Quad 4, and 1 TQ in both heat and main it was the bike powered cars I came 2nd in both heat and Main with a 05 GSXR 750 1st was some 1000cc. In the Heat the 1000cc car dusted us all and the other 4 of us had a good battle until the Ecotech's throttle stuck wide open. In the main I was able to keep up with the 1000cc car until it just got to tight for me and I was about a straightaway ahead of 3rd but that was a 1/8th mile track.

You have a good outlook towards your racing.
Somebody racing for just the fun of it, imagine that. :6:

I was not bashing the MMSA series at all. You have one of the best lightning sprint series anywhere. I run a stock ZX10 straight out of the bike, and have no desire to remove any of the gears. I'm one that still believes these 1000cc engines last much longer left as they were put together by the guys in Japan. I just have a hard time seeing that removing a few gears makes much hp difference. If it does, the I guess the rule is a good rule. Since I only run stock motors, I would never know.

Who would I contact to find out if my 1000cc car would be eligible to run with the class that was at us24?

Re: MMSA 40 Strong in Opener
 

Originally Posted by mudracer98:
Who would I contact to find out if my 1000cc car would be eligible to run with the class that was at us24?

Jay Tinder. (https://www.indianaopenwheel.com/member.php?u=5689)

Re: MMSA 40 Strong in Opener
 

So now instead of an afternoon's work and a few bucks in materials to remove my gears, I got to find someone who can CNC machine me a whole new selector drum that shifts 1-N-2-3-2-3-2 so I can sneak it through tech?

Just kidding, guys. Just kidding.