To the die hard midget race car owner, price is not really the object. The cost of motors etc. is more like a filter for them. If Midget racing was cheap then everybody would be racing them and to their way of thinking would devalue the the finish product. When ever racing organizers just like the government say they are making a regulation to make something less expensive for the party involved the parties had better hold on to their wallet's for dear life because they are fixing to try to get into it and make themselves comfortable.

From what I understand the toyota like the new mopar has a larger bore than the esslinger and allows for larger valves, the esslinger are as big as they can get without doing serious changes to the design. So after 40 years of development it looks like the little Pinto is reaching the end of the line.

The problem as I see it is these valves are getting bigger and bigger and heavier and heavier. To keep them under control at 10,000+ rpm's they need stronger and stronger valve springs. While these valves are growing in Diameter of the head the diameter of the valve stem is basically staying the same size. So they have developed this area into a weak link. The valve where the head attaches to the stem tends to break off right at the junction. No amount of money is going to fix this problem. So you got this guy that just bough a motor that costs more than many peoples homes pushing his race car off for hot laps and low and behold one of them overstressed valve breaks off at 10,000 rpm's. What happens next is the valve rattles around in there at a high rate of speed, punches a hole in the piston and becomes lodged then it continues up the stroke where it meets the bottom of the cylinder head, and the other valve, this impact dislodges the other valve and destroys the cylinder head, and it starts shaking around in there also thus jamming up the piston in the bore and breaking the connecting rod which punches a hole in the side of the block and destroys a $4000.00 crankshaft. If the driver keeps the car upright and all that oil does not ignite this is about all the damage done. We have just turned a $60,000.00 marvel of engineering into $60.00 dollars worth of scrap metal. To the wealthy racer no big deal> For the rest of us we would be looking for a pistol to end our misery.

Honest Dad himself