[DAD]

In the early 90's there were two sizes of mini sprints, the 1200 and 600cc class. The AMSA was a traveling 1200 cc group. Several tracks in Indiana and Ohio ran the 600 cc cars. Allen Rupenthal the owner of ERC racing ran mostly in the 600 cc cars. He was the builder, salseman, and driver in these early years. We ran with Allen these early years at Thunder Valley Salem, 35 raceway in Ohio and several tracks in western Indiana.
The AMSA was the elite group both in speed and cost of racing. They ran the cusom built 1200 cc motorcycle engines and at the time were the thing to beat. Many of the hot dogs were running true race engines and spent thousands of dollars getting the most out of their motors,sending them back and forth to their favorite engine builders for frequent freshen ups just like the midgets did.
The 600 cc cars ran the Honda F-1, F-2, F-3 engines as they came along new every couple of years. If you left them alone the Honda's would last for years, in fact we still have a car with an f-3 that we race at least once a year. The 1200 motors were blowing up on a regular basis. This lead to a gradual demise of the AMSA's car count.
In 1999 Yamaha came out with the R-6 It was so far advanced from the Honda's that It soon ended the Honda's hold on the 600 cars.
Allen and I had many conversations about the shape of racing and which way it was headed. He saw how well the yamaha ran and reasoned that the sidewinders would take over the 600 class cars. His idea was to take a stock 1000 cc yamaha , a light car and a good driver up to the AMSA and race. He reasoned if the inexpensive r-1 could run with the 1200 cars he could sell a lot of race cars and parts.
He was more than succesifull He won, almost every race entered and several championships. He went from the fair haired boy to villin in several years. During these years the newer 1000 cc motor were showing up and beating the old school 1200 cc motors and car count improved. I guess Allen sold a lot of cars and parts.
Allen was interested in an inexpensive race car, and the $1000.00 to $2000.00 liter motor was racing at it's cheapest. A person would have to try very hard to find any class of racing with a cheaper motor including go karts, open wheel modifieds, or even street stocks. Allen felt that stock off the bike was the way to go.
At about this time Allen and the AMSA were having problems, a guy by the name of Bill May was retireing from his day job and was wanting to find something to do with his free time. Bill wanted to help the racers by getting bigger purses, Allen was wanting to make racing cheaper for the racer. With these thoughts in mind they formed the MMSA and the stock 1000 cc motor was made the the motor of choice. AMSA still allows the 1200 motor but you won't find many of the old motors raceing now. The expense of upkeep and weight to power have made them less desirable.
There is nothing mini about mini-sprints. There lap times are often faster than the midgets or sprint cars they race with and may bring about a name change to LIGHTNING SPRINT.

[Phylo82]

That's an interesting histiory but I have heard a number of variations as to why the AMSA and MMSA went their seperate ways, and it didn't all have to do with 1000cc vs 1200cc.

That being said, how much longer can these two groups continue to exist running in such close proximity to one another, especially with some tracks beginning to run their own 1000cc class.

[slide22]

I remember dad telling stories of friends with engines from Orient Express that were ~$10,000. The old AMSA was cool, I remember them traveling around across the midwest, coming to 35 and racing with the 600's, bringing 25-30 cars, and those old 1200cc's sounded MEAN.

[DAD]

You might say Allen got PO'd at old Jerry. One of Allens tricks was to run a very light car, when Jerry bought scales Allen was not too happy. He added weight to his car to meet the weigh, and several weeks later he was dq'd for being two pounds under weight. To my knowledge only 2 cars have been dq'd for weight the other was us. Allen could see the wrighting on the wall and explored the possibility of another group. Allen was lucky enough to partner with Bill May. Bill had also run the old Buckeye mini sprints. They were formed to get better pay for the cars that ran at the old 35 raceway. They were the first traveling 600 show and our purses were 500 to 600 to win way back then. Bill even managed to get 16th speedway after the AMSA was invited not to come back because of a driver discipline problems. The first race at 16th street produced 52 race cars. Bill had a knowledge of many midwestern track owners and was able to get in some very nice tracks for MMSA to race at and that helped build up car counts and get Allens show on the road.
We are all racers, we compete with each others every race that makes us better. There will always be travelers and home-bodys. we are personallly homebody's but were kicked out in the world at an early age because we did not agree with a track promoter once or twice. That allowed us to meet Bill, Jerry and many other racers. They will have to stay on their toes to stay on top THAT IS GOOD. Bill got several top notch local tracks to race at Jerry got Lawerenceburg and the Tulsa Shoot Out. WE are doing just fine thank you very much.

[hoosierhillbilly]

I have a history question if anyone knows. From the AMSA website, it states that Dr. Greg Philpot started the AMSA. I think he was an eye doctor in New Albany. I always found this odd because I grew in the same county and was surprised that it was started in New Albany. New Albany was never the hotbed of racing when I grew up. Very few people I went to school with even knew about sprint cars.

DOes anyone know how Dr. Philpot got invovled?