Hey Papa Outlaw Regarding you earlier post '' source tells me... Look for them to change their name in 2012'' ...Funny thing is i race w/the Wisconsin Illinois Mini Sprints and me and most of the drivers i have asked havent heard anything about changeing the name?... You must of heard from a source that mostly does blow alot of smoke up people a$$'s...Thats nothing new..Most of us are all used to it up here in the north...

DAD... I been just skimming threw the post here but Out West the BCRA club call them selfs Midget Lites...

Alright! Just call them "Lightning Sprints" and get it over with... This thread is 3 days too old.
In fairness however, I propose that micro-sprints from now on be refered to as "Thunder Sprints", or maybe "Heat Lightning Sprints"...
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Good lord localYokal...Easy on the mountain juice... RELAX FRANCIS!...EASY... EASY...BREATH...

Notice that the people calling for name change or already have get about 12 cars per race? The MMSA (and AMSA used to be,) are the premier organizations for these cars in the country, and haven't seen the reason for a name change. Who gives a **** what they're called? I personally like midget lites, but a name doesn't make a race car kids.

Stump It is what I heard

Let’s begin with marketing. In short, the term “Mini‐Sprint” is a very poor representation of a modern day upright, midget‐based, motorcycle engine powered Sprint Car. Without a doubt, these are full‐blown, legitimate race cars.

MARKETING!!! as a promoter and trying to MARKET my product the word MINI has come under fire with major companies. You Mr. Racer need a name that is MARKETABLE... example... I had 2 different racers that has been racing with the Florida Mini Sprints came over and started racing with the SSLS (Lightning Sprints) this year and got sponsorship because he wasn't racing MINI sprints anymore he was racing a LIGHTNING sprint yet it was the same car. Things are really really tuff to get anything out of companies now days. So as I have said, Lightning Sprints works for me but it would help everyone if we had a universal name as far as MARKETING is concerned...We are ALL here because of tradition, name sake and/or a few other things and to get racers on the same page is next to impossible because no one whats change...there has really been only 2 very successful organizations that have made a go at bringing racers together and did pretty damn well...Bill France (NASCAR) and Ted Johnson (World of Outlaws).... WHY....MARKETING!!!!


If you were a sports fan, would you be eager to go watch a “Mini‐Football” game? A “Mini‐Baseball” game? Or how about a “Mini‐Hockey” game? Likely not.
I ask that all upright 750 c.c./1000 c.c. 1200cc “Mini‐Sprint” organizations consider removing all evidence of the word “Mini‐Sprint” in your advertising and other correspondence and replace it with the more professional term “Lightning Sprint”.

You look at Mini/Lightining sprints in the country and the biggest organizations as far as car count are: American Mini Sprints Assoc., Midwest Mini Sprints Assoc., & Wisconsin Illinois Mini Sprints. The only one that I know of that is averaging 18 to 20 plus that is "Lightining Sprints" is the California Lightining Sprints.

Thank being said I still think your name has to do with your area not the name itself.

The motor thing is a totally different topic.

This sure doesn't sound like a dead horse wooping contest to me. Long time ago when I got into mini sprint a friend of mine told me his son was racing Mini Sprints at the Little Salem race track. Neither of these things meant anything to me. I thought Salem had only one race track and his kid was only 12 years old. This was before Jef Gordon made his debut. Anyway's I went to the race and was hooked that first night. There was nothing mini about the race I watched and Salem Indiana does in fact have two race tracks.

This was back in the early 90's and "Mini" was still a fresh term and it was not something we worried about. The motorcycle powered midget chassis based race car was developed here in Indiana and we got a pretty good jump on the rest of the country. If you would like go to the AMSA web site they have a very short history of "Mini Sprints", actually a Doctor here in New Albany was one of the first people to see the importants and future of mini sprints.

Back then the world of outlaws was just getting hot. And every body in racing was talking about them. Like I said whatever "the world of outlaws" did we did too but on a smaller scale. As time went by the term "MINI" lost its luster. People began trying new names to bring us up with the times. Problem whenever you catch up with the times time leves you behind again. MINI was a good term for the 90's and 20th century It said what we were "World of Outlaw" wanabee's.

Now in the 21 st century some guy up in "Canada" puts on his "Mr Know It All Hat" and says All of you dumbies down in the United States are way off base, you need to do things the way we do it up here in Canada, after all I'm a "pro race announcer" and I need to tell you guys how to do things to get it right. Reminds me of the story about "the guy who had 50 hot dog stands all over the city, he was doing very well and he sent his son to college to study business, well after 4 year in school the kid comes back and tell dad that he is doing things all wrong and begins to change the way his dad did business because he was college educated. Well his dad went out of business in 6 months and last heard his kid was up in New York at a sit in on wall street.

PP OUTLAW I know all about advertising and how much it costs If you say muffler shop in Louisville Ky. people will say Dad's Muffler Shop "NO MUFF TOO TUFF" I had "TOMA" top of mind awareness! You can not Even guess what 3 TV station and 4 radio stations cost me a year + a full page in the yellow pages. Just because some guy in Canada says "lightning" is the word doesn't make it so. If you drank his Kool Aid and a lot of you guys starting out in the last couple of years did. It is not "etched it in stone".

WHAT IM SAYING IS THINK-TALK-LISTEN! Maybe "MINI" was not a good term, worked great for us back then but it got dated. I dont think "LIGHTNING" is any better, it doesn't describe the car at all. "NASCAR" and "USAC" and even "AMSA" have been around long enough that people know what they represent even if they don't know what the letters stand for. We need to gracefully work our way away from the terms "MINI & LIGHTNING" and maybe even sprint and come up with a name for our racers that describes what they are and what they do in a better fashion. We have already Heard from Bill May about MMSA and I would bet a dollar to a donut that Jerry Tague isn't going to change AMSA either. We dont't have to change the name of the club only the car description .



MMSA LITER MIDGET
AMSA MIDGET-LITE
XXXX TECHNO SPRINT
xxxx 3/4 sprint

Dad you call'em what you fell and works for you and I will do the same.
If anyone from up there comes to Florida in Feb for 5 maybe 8 nights of winternationals racing you will be a "LIGHTNING SPRINT" ....nuff said on my part and Yes I do respect Bill May on his decision to leave it as Mini Sprint. It works for him!!!!

Ok, listen up y'all, I'm assuming everyone here knows what a Sprint Car is, and if you take the wings off it's a Non-winged Sprint Car. A Midget is a Midget and if for some reason it has a wing, then it's a Winged Midget. The same goes for TQ's etc. If someone asks me what a Mini Sprint is, I tell them it looks just like a Sprint Car but half the size with a Motorcycle engine straight out of the bike and chain drive.
Here's the difference between a Mini and a Micro Sprint:

If it has 10" tires and the engine is hanging out the side, it's a Micro regardless of engine size!
If it has 13" tires and the engine sits in front of the driver, it's a Mini regardless of engine size!

The main difference between the two is the tire size and just like any other class of race cars, they're broke down into different classes based on engine size. I'm 34 and have been around all of these cars most of my life and learned the names and differences of these cars when I was a kid. Here's the problem and confusion, the people that are racing Micro's say that they race Mini Sprints. They don't, they race MICRO'S!! I had this same problem down here when talking to the promoter @ Windy Hollow because a Micro racer from Clarksville, TN was also talking to him. The promoter having not ever seen these cars before didn't know the difference between the two and booked a show with the Micro's thinking that he was getting what my brother and I showed and tested at his track. He now knows the difference between Micro and Mini!!
Now that we know where the confusion is coming from, we can correct it and set others straight.

WHAT THE HELL IS A "LIGHTNING" SPRINT THEN.

"Damn it"


and is that with or without wings