the
For whatever it is worth we were racing Foz cars when they were called Stealth. We have one of the very few Stealth Midgets that was Built as a Mini Sprint (smaller top rail) by John Godfrey. The race car before that was a Beast built as a Mini Sprint. The reason for switching from the Beast to the Stealth was that John at that time was at the cutting edge of Midget design. It employed all of the Buzz words you guys use today Z link rear suspension>>>Coil over shocks>>>Extremely offset chassis and even Left exit exhaust system with. This was back in I think 1991. Most racers at the time thought this a rather dumb design and when they tried it the couldn't make it work. Now 20+ years later it is considered normal practice. The Henchcraft now from Eagle Motorsports and Speedway Motors is also designed as a Min sprint for cycle motors. It uses the haitpin or wishbone rear sspension and goes so far as to move the left lower frame to inside the rear sprocket to make gear changing easier much like our old Beast Car. The newest entry to Min Sprint chassis would be the Hyper chassis by Mike Dicely. Mike designed a midget chassis and Mini Sprint chassis at the same time. It uses the Z-link but moves the left lower frame rail inside the sprockets to accommodate the changing of sprockets.
That Foz car of yours was also built by John Godfrey now known as Spike chassis for Larry and Scott Fasse. They gave it the name and market it to racers. It is a good chassis but basically as you said a Midget knock off. The Hoosier Speed chassis is simply a Tripple X chassis that is a Spike Knock off made in China to make it more affordable. The Bradley's then make motor mounts and a chain guard to convert it into a "Lightning Sprint". Every thing on a "Lightning Sprint" started out as a component for a Midget even the rear axle.
We now race a FSC chassis built by AJ Felker. AJ was my first driver. Our car is built from the ground up using a special Jigs and Fixtures for a Mini Sprint. Because of his experience racing chain drive cars AJ has changed the rear suspension around to make it more comparable to chain drive. It works pretty good with a wing and is exceptional without the wing on. A most copied race car.
A lot of racers I guess would consider me as a ranter. This rant started several years with a discushion right here on "IOW" with a southern Gentleman by the name of Wyne Davis from Florida. Basically it started as an discussion about an appropriate name for "Mini Sprints" he had drank some KoolAid somewhere and he thought that "Lightning Sprint" was hand down the best name for this type of race car. My argument was "What the hell is a Lightning" and can you name me what parts we held in common with a Sprint Car? Turned out to be the Steering Wheel and Seat and Seat belts. Every thing else came right from a person selling Midget parts out of a midget bin. So I assumed that we were racing Midgets as opposed to "Mini Srint" or "Lightning Sprint". The only difference was the engine and drive system. The really neat thing is that back in the Midgets infancy they also used Motorcycle Motors and chain drive.
It was about this time we attended the first Shoot Out in Tulsa (we lead a great deal of the race and lost out because the last 10 laps had a spin a lap (seems Winged racers don't do too good without their wings until they get a little seat time) Well the right rear glazed over and we fell back and finished second. This was also the first year for the Ecotecs to race the Shoot Out also. I watched their races and clocked them>>>I'll be darned they and us were turning almost identical lap times. I think they only had about 10 cars that time out. I thought heck if we are that close to one another why don't we race together and help both our car counts out.
Wayne did that exactly by making rules to combine Focus>>Ecotec's and motorcycle powered race cars together. He went on to name his creation Division II Midgets. You know sure enough all of these cars did race well together. I also went so far as to sponsor an indoor race in DuQuoin Illinois last winter with all of these classes racing together they were also competitive there.
We have also raced with the National Midgets once at North Vernon Indiana and on 2 or 3 times at Montpelier...Guess what we have always managed to finish just a little better than Mid pack with these cars.
Kenny Brown of the National PowrI Midgets has noticed Wayne's work down in Florida and has with Wayne formed a group of PowrI Southern States Division II Midgets in Florida and Georgia. He has also formed a Division II group in Indiana. It looks as if they just might develop into something.
Indiana is a little different than many states. We are not particularly hurting for car count but we have several Midget Divisions such as Focus>Honda>and even slightly over the hill National Midgets that can't come up with enough cars to race.
The Focus> Ecotec and Cycle cars are pretty close in performance. The old National Midgets might just have a few more beans in their pot than the other cars. Now I start thinking about handicapping something we do with race horses. Weight doesn't work too well because we do pretty good job and are about 150 pounds heavy. Restrictor plates are too complicated. On a slick small track we can give the National Midgets a pretty good race, on a heavy track we loose out. Why not go back to a tire used 20 or so years ago with a 10 inch tread. Races are won in Mini Sprints by the racer that puts the power to the ground and not in smoke. If we changed to a 10 inch tread it would be easier for an underpowered 1000cc car to control than a 166ci Esslinger but a good driver could do it. A novice driver with very little throttle control would just go up in smoke while a knowledgeable driver would just drive right on by. I would just like for those interested party's to think about this and comment. I love Midget racing even Lightning sprint racing, but I am looking down the road.
Could we treat this like a discushion?
Honest Dad himself
