Quote:
Originally Posted by TQ29m
I think I would try to keep it all Nisson or Honda, rear end ratios might be a bit easier to find, a lot of that stuff is all from one place, Toyota might be a nice place to search, and aftermarket hopup stuff is more available, better grab ya a spare midget chassis while they are cheap, plus a good 5 or6 speed trans before things warm up, been a looooong while since I had to wear a heavy coat in a "yard"! Still think it's worth a look, it doesn't look like racing is going to get any cheaper, and there may be plenty of races to go to, but if they don't pay well, sure won't be many "road trips" like we used to pull, but it was fun while it lasted, course I pulled all over the 48 racing go-karts, and never picked up a dime that wasn't already mine, had a lot of fun, met a lot of nice people, went a lot of places people wouldn't normally go, used up a lot of that nasty fossil fuel, even carried extra cause gas pumps were locked on Sundays, anyone remember what year that "ruse" was launched on us? Oh well, it wasn't all a dream, it's been a fun ride! Bob
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Bob
I think that was the 1973 oil embargo. I can remember taking a truck load of Quarter Midgets out to the QMA nationals being held in San Jose Ca. that year. We were running low on gas and stopped to find some gas in Utah and the gas station guy telling us that the closest gasoline was up in Idaho. Yes we carried extra gasoline but ran real close. Then we brought 20 cases of Coors back to help finance the trip.
Do you know that that stuff wasn't Pasteurized.
The way I see things going down is. We have two classes of race cars being real close together in performance.They are the TQ Midget and Mini sprint. Both are very close to one another in cost and performance. They are both looking for a larger car count although I sometime wonder why. Both can still field 20 or more cars per race, enough for a good main. The Tq's need to be looking for a new power plant as the old 750 Honda's are getting harder and harder to find. The inexpensive motorcycle motors for Mini sprints are also getting a little harder to find especially those that are good enough to race without having yo spend an arm and a leg to overhaul. If the TQ's switch to a modern day 14000-15000 rpm motorcycle motor they are not going to be able to get a gear ratio that will work for their cars without going to some kind of transmission device.
We might say both classes are going to have to change. The TQ racers think that chains are best left to bicycles, and the mini sprint racers think that Quick Changes are just out of the question because of the EXTRA "expense" involved??
Back in days gone by when people built their own race cars (some good some bad) both classes of cars would have run together. Drive shafts and Chains raced together in Harmony and every body had fun.
In the case of TQ's an enterprising young man came along with an old German outboard motor that was also chain driven. He wiped them so bad and so often that the powers that be were sure it was that motor and not the guy's driving ability that was beating them. So the best way to fix that problem was to ban the chain drive.
The Mini Sprint racers "ASS"umed that quick changes were just too expensive to start with and never gave them a second thought.
Both classes started out as a low cost form of open wheel racing and like everything else that people progressed up the ladder to more and more expensive forms of racing. If a guy can afford a $20,000.00 Mini sprint he can probably afford a $2,000.00 rear end.
We need to sit down and develop a class standard somewhere in the middle of these two classes to help bring the cost of racing back down for all of us. Wayne down in Florida has come up with division II Midgets. I think he is on the right track. The car that Bob found on EBAY might well be the Division II> Mini> Tq of the future. When looking for a cheap high Horsepower, low weight motor we might just start looking back in the Auto Junk Yard for what we need to go racing with.
Honest Dad himself
