If NASCAR drivers are stupid enough not to lift, (slow down), then that is their own fault. Fact is if you don't have grip, you don't need a horsepower (money) race. So what you get when you slow down is a car that is not balled up and a lot of horsepower you don't need. There fore you can go buy a Cosworth for $10,000 and win again.

the idea behind the ARDC motor rules is to try to keep everyone pretty close, cost wise and performance wise. the rhino was banned because some said it had more torque (i didnt agree) but the biggest issue was the seals and possibilities of "altering" its performance and the problems that would come from teching it, should it show an obvious superiority.
I THINK....the 151 esslinger is still legal as well as any other pushrod motor....but during the meeting to discuss the rhino, the overhead cam motors may have been banned altogether.
there are a couple newer "high end" motors that run with the club but since the club doesnt have a home track and runs with other classes, the probability of running on a slicked up track is pretty good, most nights. that seems to take the advantage away from the higher horsepower motors and evens things up quite a bit.
steve buckwalter is the current guy to beat with ARDC and not only is his stuff pretty basic, he will share setups and advice with anyone. he gets his wins because he is a professional race driver that is able to run 2-3 nights a week and is real sharp behind the wheel. you could put anyone in that car and they probably wouldnt get the same results but he could jump in any other car and probably win. point is....he isnt winning because he has superior stuff or more expensive stuff....he just drives his ass off.
IMO....ARDC doesnt have to bow down to manufactures or big sponsors so they make the rules to suit their members. the theory has worked for the past few years and tracks that wouldnt even consider booking the midgets are now wanting shows again. the fans come out, the club puts on a good show, the members dont have to yank their motors out every 4-5 shows to get redone or buy new "flavor of the week" motors anytime someone comes out with something "new and improved" and the club continues to grow.........where else is that happening?

Steve Buckwalter does indeed drive his ass off. If the midget racers in the rest of the country had to win a 25-lapper from 18th, they'd probably load up.

I havent heard a clear answer yet just engine discussions.How bout we let USAC keep the sprint cars and let ARDC have the midgets?USAC isnt going to do anything for midget racing when they have the sprint cars.Unfortunately that sucks.I love the midgets and remember as a kid them running every where.You could go to a midget race any weekend and sometimes during the week.I would love for those days to be back.I dont know what the PowerI engine rules are for midgets but us micros running with them has been a pretty good deal.It also seems that everyone is pretty happy with ARDC's rules.Is it just plain the management that has changed USAC from to days of old or what?When I was younger was in the early 80's through the early 90's.Who was running USAC then?Im sure people on here will know and probably know exactly who all of them was.What did they do differently back then?I guess it doesnt really matter though if you cant get USAC to listen to you in the first place.Please!Save the midgets.

I have been following along with this thread to see what direction it goes. It is interesting to see the different view points on what the solution or problem is. As Baue said, this trend has been around for years. Engines have come and gone over the years. The biggest difference between now and then though, is that midget racing is no longer a hobby. That time ended when corporate america became involved. Lets face it, the primary sponsor of usac for quite a few years now has either been mopar or toyota. If all of the money and resources available to the factory supported teams are not enough to make them competitive with esslingers, then what is? If these manufactures feel they cannot evenly compete, why would or should they? If these manufacturers leave, who will fill their shoes? If they take their sponsorship dollars, will anyone step up to fill the void they have left?

Maybe Baue is right, maybe the pushrod engine platform is obsolete. If so, then usac should open the rules up. ALLOW chevy, mopar, and toyota design an over head cam engine. I know for a FACT that chevy wanted to build an over head cam engine. Usac told them NO, it had to be a push rod engine. Now they are gone from midget racing, and yes I know the economy didn't help. Is this good for midget racing? Is this what we really want? The factory supported teams pulling out because it doesn't make sense for them to be here any longer. Kinda says something about the state of the sport, and its not saying "man thats a tough sport". Maybe over head cam is the way to go for midget racing. Almost all 4cylinders on the road today are over head cam anyway. Who knows maybe even honda might be interested in building midget motors. Then maybe some of these young street car tuners will get involved and bring a in whole new generation of fans and participants.
I think maybe the most cost effective method would be to give the other manufacturers some more cubic inches. This would be no different than what usac did for esslinger and fontana back when they were struggling. Since most usac teams not utilizing esslinger power are factory supported, there would be far fewer engines to reconfigure. I was told that it would cost between 6-10k to make the esslinger competitive at the rpm level that is being discused. I am certain a lot of the smaller teams cannot afford to make the necessary modifications. If the cubic inches are increased, then the engine manufacturers who support these factory teams would most likely absorb the cost. But then, what do you do with the smaller teams? There are a lot of smaller teams still using gaerte-12, ed pinks and some other older engines with a little success. Do we tell them they have to upgrade or go race with the irs series or the umara sportsman division (not knocking them, great clubs, just not everyones cup of tea).

I have one thing that may be somewhat of a solution, at least for pavement. TIRES, especially the right rear. In the regional series we use a 10" wide 7.6 tire, in the national series we use a 12" wide 7.3. The regional tire requires a much more aggresive set up to make the tire hook up. It never hooks up as good as the national tire, no matter what set up you use. There is simply less traction available. The racing at grundy county is usually as good as it gets on the short tracks, because no body can use extra horsepower or torque if they have it (regional tire mandatory). You will see all sorts of car and engine combinations up front at grundy, not all beasts, not all big new high hp motors. Most all of the regional races can be won without having big hp or torque, even at illiana motor speedway (close to a 5/8). I think the tire just eliminates the need for the big horsepower motor. A few years ago the national series was on a 7.6, most all of the big teams with big horsepower whined and said the racing wasn't good, you could not pass, you could never hook up the cars. They were right, if you had the motor tuned on kill, or didn't finesse the big hp engines, you could not pass, and you could not hook up the cars. Hmmm...Cars not locked down, not able to use big horsepower, no need to turn excessively high rpms, no need to have the greatest engine available...sounds like a good thing to me! Usac listened to the mega teams, now we have gumball soft and wide right rears. I can only think of a few occasions where we actually had to tighten up the car while using this tire. Usually the battle is to loosen the car up in the middle of the corner. The easiest way to fix this condition is make more horsepower or torque, usually this means changing the gear to crank higher rpms (now keep in mind, the esslinger is already turning 1000 rpms more than a push rod engine, so it is already making more power in the center of the turn, and you cant sacrafice corner speed by loosening the car up). Changing the gear fixes the problem, UNTIL you get to the end of the straight away and start hearing funny noises at peak rpm. Then few laps later you hear valve springs start to break, which is then usually followed up with a nice hole in the oil pan, sometimes accompanied by a small oil fire. Then a long caution period to clean up oil. Then another caution for the guy who is now in the fence with a flat right front because he hit a piece of connecting rod not found during the track clean up. This whole scenario could have been avoided if usac just had mandated a harder tire! Ok, ok, maybe I exaggerated a little to get my point across!

Whatever the best solution is, it needs to make sense for the future of midget racing. Not only to keep current owners and manufacturers happy, but to be able to attract new owners and manufacturers as well. The solution needs to make sense to the largest factory supported teams all the way down to the smallest one car teams. Our sport is filled with very intelligent people, but the problem is that most of their personal agendas rarely include saving the sport of midget racing. These agendas however, do include things like, what can I get do to get an advantage, what secret adjustable part can I make a huge profit with, who can advance my kid to nascar the fastest, and the list goes on and on and on. We all have agendas and we will always try to be the best, smartest, strongest, fastest, thats just human nature. We all race to win, otherwise we would sit around and knit all weekend! I just feel that a little more time, effort and thought needs to be put into helping the sport as a whole. I am not telling you to quit trying to figure out how to lap the field, or quit trying to get to nascar, or quit trying to make millions of dollars, just maybe take some time think about how we can help the sport survive and thrive.

Kevin Besecker

I think maybe the most cost effective method would be to give the other manufacturers some more cubic inches. This would be no different than what usac did for esslinger and fontana back when they were struggling. Since most usac teams not utilizing esslinger power are factory supported, there would be far fewer engines to reconfigure. I was told that it would cost between 6-10k to make the esslinger competitive at the rpm level that is being discused. I am certain a lot of the smaller teams cannot afford to make the necessary modifications. If the cubic inches are increased, then the engine manufacturers who support these factory teams would most likely absorb the cost. [/U][/I][/I][/I]

This is the most educated answer to the whole issue. This would be the way to make it the most cost effective answer to make Toyota and Mopar equal (even though I am not so sure they are at any disadvantage). I was told by a high ranking official at USAC that they wanted to allow the push rods to be more competative with the Esslingers. As Kevin stated they can absorb the costs a hell of a lot easier than the guys that made this sport what it is.... Toyota for example is all factory supported motor programs, thus no added costs to the team....I agree with Kevin and hope USAC will take a look at this before they make a huge mistake and run every Esslinger owner over to Powri, ARDC or BCRA.

There were only 7 cars that ran the full midget deal last year?? How many next year i think 2 of them are done? So I think this is a bigger issue than the motors! They need to go back to the combo cars first and get the car counts back and start gettin some money to the racers.

Awesome guys.Those was 2 great answers and I must say you both have 10 times more knowledge than I do.So I ask you all this.Are the Esslinger's 155 or 161.Why do you think they DONT get rid of the push valve engine and go to all overhead cams?Besides that though I think the tire rule would be a start.Harder,narrower tires.RR and LR both.We started halfting to run a spec RR tire at Peru this year in the micros and not only did it save quite a bit of money it made just as good racing.Of course thats dirt not pavement.I think the first thing is to get a track involved like Anderson has been in the regional and kenyon series that will either run these rules or at least let these be tested.You should have a rule from the middle of the LR to RR to keep teams from spacing the RR out to far.Im sure there is now but make the spacing shorter.Teams will get it down but they will half to start on a playing field that is level other than motors.I dont know much about the motors so others can fill that part in but there has to be a start somewhere.Is it April yet?

---------- Post added at 10:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:33 PM ----------

By the way.I completely agree with the combo cars.No dirt cars and Pavement cars.You run the same car at IRP that you do Gas City or Kokomo.We dont need special cars for dirt and pavement.Everybody gets the same car (other than manufacturer) and everyone has to change it and figure it out.

The Esslingers are at 161 by the USAC rulebook. The push rod motors other than the Fontana are 166

One more thing with the combo car. I think they will put on a better show on the pavement! JMO I also think they are more fun to drive on the pavement. remember the thunder shows from the late 80's? I think that racing was great maybe even better than the new stuff!