I put together this article for www.open-wheels.com. I hope you all enjoy it as I know we all love this form on racing here on IOW.


http://open-wheels.com/?p=1272

If you can't build a race motor.....you can't build a street car motor into a race motor.

If you think people can't see two seconds on the track....you are a fool. 2 seconds is a lifetime. If anyone doesn't think so ...go to youtube and watch how different the racing is at a place like Angel Park. There are videos of Illini Features and Powri features on similar track conditions.

That wasn't as much a story on the identity crises of midget racing as it was propaganda.

Sprint Cars and Micros occupy all of the Niches once filled by Midgets.

There are plenty of things that could be done to the current platforms to help curb costs without introducing and mandating a new platform.

Midget Racing for the most part is headed down the road of scca where there are little to no fans and a minimal at best, payout .

If more people were less concerned on "Saving" the sport and focused more on enhancing and growing the sport, the sport would be better off.

I find it amazing how no one is able to see that when guys like Jack Calabrase and Kenny Brown come along and promote the sport from the bottom up....the health of the sport magically gets better.

You think it's a rich guy sport now....wait until you get Chevy ,Ford, Toyota and Honda all involved.

I'm not saying that I wouldn't/ won't get a motor someday and run with Illini or Badger. Lot of good people who race with them. I'm just not much for the Misinformation and rhetoric.

Midget racing suffers more from greed and apathy than anything else.

I do have to make a clarification on this article. Towards the end it states "Multiple attempts to get a response from USAC for this story were met with no reply." Davey Hamilton DID respond to my email tonight (3 days after I sent my 2nd of 2 emails to USAC). I understand he is super busy after just taking over the reigns of the organization. If I would have known he was going to respond tonight I would have held out for another day on the article. I will however have an article with Davey on his direction to take USAC as a whole in the coming days.

Yup, its all about the motor, nothing else.....lets just keep changing the engine platform until we save midget racing. This idea has worked flawlessly in the sprint cars, 410, 360, 305 etc.

Midget racing was at a crossroads 10 years ago, what was the solution? Create an affordable engine platform because ALL midget owners had $40,000 national motors.

Focus, Ecotec, where are we today.....still trying to eliminate ALL those $40,000 national motors to save midget racing.

Why isn't there talk about growing the sport? You know one of the big reasons sprint cars and micros are more popular? Because you can race them weekly at tracks within a hour or less travel from your home. Where can you do that with a midget? This is just one big issue that a motor wont change.

What midget motors cost 50k? Please tell me. It seems like you exaggerated the price high for a "National" motor and went to the extreme low on the small motors. You talked to a ecotech team but not a powri team? You didn't mention that powri traveled to Oklahoma and had 68 cars. You don't mention that powri west was just formed and is doing well. You pretty much only told the struggles of usac. You didn't mention that these small series purse is less than half what powri and usac pay.

Honest Dad himself

As I recall, this whole "crisis" started in the late 80's, early 90's, I was just looking for something, having ran go-karts since 1958, and done a lot of travelling, as well as our local tracks, and the WKA National series. I wanted to do less travelling, and about bought a midget, but this was also about the time, I believe it was NAMARS, hooked their wagon to asphalt, and practically moved lock stock and barrel out of Indiana, and mostly Michigan, and parts West. I had been following the TQ'S for a long time, kinda in the back of my mind, and they were running most of their shows within 200 miles or less of my base, so I went looking, and bought one. I was also interested in sprint cars, but being a one man operation, figured that would be a blast, but not for long, so I settled in with the TQ. That was in 1991, and I really haven't looked back, still some travelling, but a lot less then I had been doing, so it's been my home since. The midget tho, still hasn't left my thoughts, but at todays prices, it's even more of a dream, then it was then. I believe midget racing, on a local basis, could again be a reality, but someone has to be clever enough to come up with an engine package, well under 10k, that any good mechanic can build himself. As far as I'm concerned, the TQ engine specs in use today, are as good as it gets, it lets you play and experiment, within a box, and race as cheap as anything, some are going to mortgage the farm, but it's the same in anything, but making it affordable for the majority, I feel, is the answer, and still provide a good show for the fans. I see in one other post about this weekend at Brownstown, one wants to know the order of the feature's, because he isn't interested in anything but the Sprint cars, that to me is awfully selfish, who do you think is going to put butts in the seats, and cars in the pits, to pay the purse? The support classes of course, and the sprint car guys know it, it gives them time to make changes and get ready, without a lot of hurrying, I for one, don't know any other way to do it, unless you can over charge everyone that shows up, to pay the purse, there won't be many cars in the pits, so the show goes down hill from there. Just my 2 cents worth, as usual! Bob

Who really cares what organization, what area, or who's racing where? The only concern I see is that an "AVERAGE" working person can't afford to race a midget or sprint car. Tell me how an income of $40k a year can afford a $20k motor? It does need "saved" instead of grown. I may be one of the few that enjoyed watching the Sam Isnhowers, Ted Hines, Michael Lang, Dink Glidden, Rob Parrish and people of this sort that were blue collar working people who went and could field a midget that could win at the little joints, and not be an embarrassment at the big tracks.

It's screwed up that people can't understand where racers came from since the beginning. They weren't rich or even very well off people in most cases. Try doing it now on an "AVERAGE" income, however a lot of people that THINK they are average are not. Average working people usually put asses in the stands too!

Then get a ecotech and go run one. The problem is people want to make everyone with a national motor slow down so they can compete. You don't see woo changing their engine rules to 305 rules. If you wanna run ecotechs do it, if you wanna buy a new Toyota do it. There are different divisions for this reason. I can't go run nascar but I don't think they need to make it do everyone can afford to do it. Maybe we should all race hornets for $50 to win that way it's fair to everyone. Because that's what this world has come to just give everyone a participation trophy so we don't hurt anyone's feelings.

I don't want everyone to slow down to an ecotec, i am just happy there are more and more places for me to run mine. If I could afford a "national" I would have one. There is not one cure all solution to "fix" things or to improve them, like others have said in post on here and FB, car counts are good on 1/4 miles and get shakey from there as tracks get bigger. I love midget racing and this is how I can go do it week in and week out and we are loving every minute of it.