Originally Posted by openwheel44:
The "Tulsa" thing I referred to was the MEETING the Minisprint/Lightning sprint guys had during an actual Chili Bowl to come up with a set of "acceptable" general rules. Forgot what actual year it was. It was interesting though because the first year they had the Chili Bowl, MARA was orgainizing it for Emmett. They invited the Minisprints knowing what was running around the Tulsa area at the time plus they weren't sure how many midgets would actually show up. Some of those cars had 1400cc-1500cc motor built to the max. I showed up with my injected, stock V-max along with 2-3 Tulsa guys. The Fraizers. Low and behold, after we got there....I was informed we couldn't race with the midgets.......Lanny didn't think we were "good enough" to run with them. ???? So they had an exibition and I loaded up and left. We didn't run with them in the Chili Bowl though.
My cars are purpose built cars by BLS. They are true Lightning Sprints, not conversions. You can see it on my web page www.openwheel44.com. Click around to find the series of shots of the car with out the body. They have evolved from the older Doemelts and then the Canaday cars. Completely safe and reliable. You don't have to run a sherman tank to be safe. Unfortunately, mine has been crash tested a couple of times and only damaged bolt on stuff. Front axle, radius rods and jacobs ladder. The hubs are Hyper, the wheels are Keizer and rear axle assembly is Hyper. Track tested and working fine. I understand they run the same stuff in their 1000cc sidewinder cars. Run a shell on the tail and 5 gallon military approved fuel cell...not a bladder system. 1 1/4" .095 wall 4130N frame. Anyway.....we thought outside the box and built these cars. Our thoughts........if our group stayed with the 925# rule, lets build a safe car a 230-235# driver can run and not give away so much weight.
The nice thing about my big driver we don't spend a lot of time going back and forth to the scales. My car is built by AJ Felker. It is a copy of his midget frame with the smaller top rail and suspentions picks ups and left side rail raised for wing and chain drive. I feel it is a very safe car and we have proof tested it several times. We could go down to 060 bottom rail and cut the thickness gauge of braces down but then I would not feel as safe with my kid driving it.
We are and always will be a hobby type sport. I don't think I would give up my day job to race them. Weight is everything in a race car.
What we are doing is setting a max drivers weight of about 200 lbs. If a guy is bigger than that he needs to find something with fenders to race.
Would any one like to test there frame rail thickness with my ultrasonic thickness tester? There are a few light weight frames out there and would you like no know before or after you flip?
