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Originally Posted by LEADERS EDGE
Ok....how are they making the power? What is the life expectancy of the internals? Drag racing isn't 1/4 mile dirt track racing. The motor is subjected to different forces of sustained rpms and being bogged down on the lower ranges with rapid changes in rpms. I would be interested in getting the information from motors used in a dirt track environment
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Leader
Thanks for supporting Montpelier Speedway. I attended the first meeting Harold had in Indy when he was seeking imput and advice. He took all this bull that was flowing around the table, digested it came up with a set of rules, and I'll be darned they work pretty darned good.
Stock block midget will come. Now for whatever it is worth we just got done with a show that had maybe 75 serious balls to the wall Midget racers and 250 guys in it for just the fun of it. It seemed like it worked pretty good also.
There will never be 100 cars on the road going to National Shows all over the United States. There are other factors that go into whether a guy travels or stays close to home and becomes a weekend warrior. Just a guess but I would bet that a National touring team's Motor expenditures is probably 20% of the budget. Transportation, wages, tires lodging taking up the major expense. So while we are sitting around worrying about them they just go about their own business of being a traveling team.
The guys on the road probably make up less than 10% of the total Midget racing population. The weekend warriors the rest, while the weekend teams try to make do on hand me down motors and sometime even tires and other expendables.
If we could get a good stock block program in place that would work for them they might save enough to allow a few more teams on the road again also but it won't be drastic change.
The growth I am looking for is a growth in the weekend division, I would not go on the Road show if you give me 3 cars, 6 engines a transporter and a crew and payed my expenses and a 6 figure salary>>>Sorry I like what I am doing right now.
Since it was pretty today Doug and I went out and spent a few hours cleaning the car up from our last race at Du Quoin. Mini sprints for us is low maintenance racing and we like it that way. After all I got a life, sitting right here on my dead butt and posting on the IOW.
I started out racing quarter midgets back in the 50's, we always had classes. I can't figure out why everybody wants to make one thing fit everybody. I wouldn't want to start my kid out racing guys like Rico with years and years of seat time under his belt.
I would be looking for something a little slower and cheaper. Why not a stock block class like EchoTec.
I am an observer> some of my first observations were at the Indy 500 in the "Snake Pit". An observer could observe almost any thing in that place. We have been racing Mini Sprints for about 20 years and I observed that they were about as cheap, easy to maintain and fast as any open wheel car out there even in our 600cc form. A couple of years ago I was fortunate to observe an EchoTec race at the Shootout. I observed those darned little car and us were pretty close together performance wise. Still observing I noticed they perform pretty good in an almost stock form. There are guys out there saying they need rods, pistons, valves and cams to really work. I am not to sure of their reasoning right now but I guess I need to do a little more observing.
I also noticed over the last several years neither class had substantial car counts alone. It seemed to me if the groups loosened up their rules a little to allow cross class racing they could help one another. I know their are groups out there that do this and that is a good thing.
I think Echotec's can be inexpensive or expensive. The budget guys will work on salvage parts and probably have $2500.00 in their Long Block, the better funded racer might have $6000.00 or more in a brand new long block crate motor with all the "TRICK" racing modifications installed by an engine builder. A little much for me but what the heck.
We have allowed after market cams, valves, springs, rods and pistons at the DuQuoin race in February however when I stick my bore scope down them holes I do not want to find indications of machine or grinding work. That is not to say that I am against porting, heck no but not in a so called stock class We would call this first class "Modified Stock". If we want to port lets work on another class lets call that the "B" modified class.
My next class would be the "Double A" class. This is where I change gears. I do not know why people get so hung up on 4 cylinders inline and slightly less than 3000 cc motors. The new Hot Rods out there on the street today are V6's that are around 3500 to 3800cc's. Set you displacement limit to 3500 cc or less. Specify stock block stock head with no welding or machining to change basic engineering designs and strengths. Everything else is wide open do what you can afford and have fun.
PS Roy I bought my wife one of them HonDoo lawn mower's 25 years ago because she could start it and it pulled itself around. Twenty Five years later she is still cutting the grass and starting that thing. She is now on Social Security. They have both very good investments.
Honest Dad himself
