Jim

Get out there and have fun dang it. Ain't nobody saying nothing.

I wish we had enough cars so we could have a Sr. Division. Then If I could figure out an A/C unit and a bottle of Oxygen I could get out there to and show you all how a Master Does it.

You know somewhere else on IOW they are talking about roll bar reinforcements, Bet a big old Carrier A/C unit over my head would take care of that just fine, and we would be really fast when the track slicked off.

Honest Dad himself

Bill
I intend to have a great deal of fun; I've already been given a ton of help and encouragement, I just know that there are people out there who won't miss an opportunity to turn their nose up at "outdated" equipment, whichever side of the firewall it's sitting on. That's OK. I don't live my life based on other people's opinions. I've witnessed how well Pat did with a motor almost identical to mine, and that gives me a good feeling about my prospects. Watching Floyd Alvis compete in the Chili Bowl at age 79 was uplifting too; heck, if I can run until I'm 79 that would give me an 18 year career!

Jim

Like I keep on saying>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>It ain't all in the motor Pat probably did well because of his driving ability inspite of his motor.

Had he not done well then he can blame the motor, everybody else does.

BC and his crew could have probably done just as well with a car that did not make it out of the B main at the Chili Bowl. Go figure??

I'm from Kentucky We bet the "Jockey".

Honest Dad himself

Nothing wrong with your engine setup at all. If I could have found another one for a less than a crazy price, I'd still be running a Carbed oil cooled Suzuki because it ran like a beast. One major thing I always laugh at is hearing the newer motors banging off the rev limiter almost all the way around the track. I only hit mine once, on purpose, and ran just fine. I only turned my engine to 9200rpms because it didn't make any more useful power beyond that anyways so why spin it to hell and back if you don't have to. Another thing that I found helpful was my pavement experience for my driving style. Yeah, it looks wild to back it in, but I didn't have the horsepower to drive it in like that, I just drove it all the way through the corners so I didn't have to shake the tires loose.

As far as age. I feel old at 32 when I'm most the time I'm racing against drivers that aren't even old enough to drive on the road. For that, I'd like to refer to the viagra commercial where the guy gets the truck and horse trailer stuck in the mud. Instead of getting mad and banging gears, just gets the horses out and tows the whole rig out. Lets call it the age of experience to make things out of date by some folk's standard happen.

Jim

The V-Max and 14000cc concours are a little down on power and a tad bit heavy for a race car. . For that matter the same thing holds true for the Hybusa and ZX14r Kaw.

If you want an "Old School Bad AZZ Motor" find a Bandit and drop about $6000.00 in it. You will be fast for a bit.

Honest Dad himself

Yeah, I Googled the specs on the Concours and it actually makes just a tad more power than my 91 GSXR did stock. But that was Pat's idea anyway . The V-Max is right up there with your beloved ZX10, but it probably is heavier. More displacement doesn't always mean more power.
The encouraging thing to me is my ol' Gixxer has close to the same torque as the more "modern" motors; if I can keep her hooked up I should at least be pretty good off the corners...

Jim

The bottom is often the best place to be on the race track but it takes one hell of a driver to run down there fast.

Honest Dad himself

Jim

Let me see 79 minus 18 equqls 61. Heck you are ain't nothing but a young pup, seems like them years tend to go by faster and the energy tends to drops off geomerticaly.

Honest Dad himself

I can see us going down the pathway of the TQ's except we are going to be saying heck no we don't want no shaft drive mini-sprints because that would take away or inherent advantage of having a cheaper and more efficient drive line. I have always been of the old school though that a race car is a race car, and is used to help better the automotive breed.

I have been around these things to see the 1200cc motors become very popular and then almost die out because of the cost involved to race them. Back in the 90's a good 1200cc motorcycle engine from a reputable motor builder cost almost as much as a Midget motor. Well the 1200cc race cars fell out of favor. About this same time the motorcycle manufactures developed the "pocket rockets". they were small light 600cc version of the big old 1200cc bikes. They caught on with the young teenage cycle people like you would never believe. These little 600cc motors were much more efficient than their big brothers and cheaper also. They were seen as the right to manhood by many young riders. Unforntunately for them and fortunately for us racers they wrecked these things in very short order. They fit right in where the old 1200cc motors were and performed almost if not better than their big brother's. There were people that spent big money trying to make them faster but we soon found out they worked pretty good right off the bike.

I guess the manufactures saw what a big success they had in the 600cc bikes and developed a new 1000cc class looking for the same success that they had enjoyed with the 600cc bikes.

The 600cc upright mini sprint was a great race car but at the same time the sidewinder was being developed by the Micro Midget people. This caused the price of the 600cc motor to go up because of the demand.

Allen Rupenthal of ERC race cars saw the possibilities that the new Yamaha R1 had for this class of race car. He put a car together with an R1 as its power plant, and with the help of a very talented race car driver by the name of Lynn Ambrose took his creation to race with the AMSA mini sprints. At this time the AMSA was in decline because of the expense of building and keeping a competitive 1200cc motor racing. Within a year it seemed mini sprints began to turn around with these new motors and Allen's efforts to promote these cars the car counts were increasing again, and all because of that little r1 motor. Suzuki and Kawasaki soon followed up with their own 1000cc motorcycles and mini sprints were off and running again. In fact they were so popular that newbie's thought that they needed to change the name to make them sound more racey and be something other than "MINI" a name they saw as demeaning. Thinking that popularity of these cars was in a name rather than in the fact that were fast and cheap to race.

The new economy we are facing today may mean more changes are in order. They are still making motorcycles but they are not nearly as popular as they were in the 1990's and early 2000's. A nice fast 1000cc bike is going to set someone back between $12000.00 and $18000.00. The teenagers aren't getting these things like they used to and the older rider who is spending this much money on a cycle is much more likely to put a lot more miles on them than the kid's did. Dwarf cars, Mod Lites and formula 1000 sports car racers are also trying to buy the same engines. This means we have a smaller amount of 1000cc engines available with much higher mileage on them and a much larger demand, a great thing for the dealers.

I bought a new Gen IV kawasaki. It is going to be a bear to get it into a race car where it will work the way it should. I am quite sure Suzuki and Yamaha will change their motors to where they don't lend them selves to race cars either. Does this mean we stop using newer motors. I think Harvey in New York is having problems with an over complicated computer on his BMW. He probably has it "hacked" out by now, but what we need to think about is will the newer cycle motors fit our needs in the future and if they don't do we just put a cut off date like 2010 or older motors and do like the other race groups out there or do we look for other ways to power our cars?? Will that require a drive shaft??

Honest Dad himself

Thanks for the history lesson Dad. Coming from California, and being mostly involved in TQ's and Midgets out there I didn't have a full appreciation of the Midwest evolution of the chain-driven classes; I don't think any of the uprights on the Left Coast went through the 600 iteration, they just morphed straight from 1200's to 1000's. I could be wrong, like I said I wasn't paying that much attention, but seems like the 600's were almost exclusively sidewinders out there. I migrated to a 1200 upright because it looked like the most economical way for me to get back into racing, not really aware of what was going on behind the curtains with the move to 1,000cc rules. Since my intention has always been to run non-wing it hasn't hurt me too much in terms of places to race, so I'm OK with my decision.
Truth is, it's gonna be tougher and tougher to find suitable power units as both bikes and cars get more electronics and emissions controls placed on them. Personally I see nothing wrong with a little experimentation just to see what works and what doesn't; chain drive bike motors, shaft drive bike motors, chain or shaft drive PWC units with a radiator instead of a lake supplying the coolant, Ecotechs, VTECs, SkyActive Mazdas, Dodge Darts, Subarus, whaddaya got? The Next Great Poor-Boy Racer is out there waiting to be unearthed, taking its' place in the Pantheon next to the Rajo T's, Riley and Cragar B's, Edelbrock flatties and Small-block Chevies, Chevy II's and V-Dubs, GSXR's & R1's. What's next?