The little Yamaha R-1 is a very good choice for a Mini-Sprint Race car right off of the bike. Allan Ruppenthal recognized this several years ago. Had not the R-1 came along Mini-Sprints would be extinct today. This motor right off the bike in the hands of a good driver is capable of winning or running up front just the way it was removed. That was and is its big selling point.
The Ambrose Boys have raced with stock R-1 motors for a long time. Allan's Idea was if he could build a race car and power it with the R-1 motor he could sell a bunch of cars and you know what he did. Most Mini-Sprint racers are new to the sport of racing. They all have ambitions of winning or they would not be racing. We are entry level racing and because of this we sometimes don't know where or how to spend our racing dollars.
Without a doubt Mac builds a beautiful air cleaner, with out a doubt there are some very good dyno people out there that can smooth out the curves a little. My point is a racer is not going to come from riding a sand rail out in the dessert and buy a Mini -Sprint, Bolt on a Mc Performance air box get a custom Dyno Tune and beat the Ambrose Brothers or for that matter they aren't even going to beat us. There are people out there selling hopes and dream that all you have to do is put this on or do this and you will be invincible. To win in any form of auto racing you need seat time seat time seat time and then set up strategies. You can buy the later but the seat time is just what it is. Some people catch on right away some people take a little longer and some people never do figure it out.
We pay lip service to idea that Mini-Sprints should be inexpensive, and the car that Allan envisioned was and is economical. When a racer starts racing and finds out how expensive racing really is and sees little results we end up with another car in the classified section of IOW. For a racer starting out the performance of the car handling is much more important than the Horsepower of the motor. An old racing saying goes like this "A good handling race car can make a chump look like a champ, and a poor handling race car can make a champ look like a chump."
Keep your motors stock as you can, put a fan on your radiator, run your alternator, and go out and have fun and get some seat time. A good chassis, shocks, bars and tires will go much further in making a young racer successful than any amount of motor work. Spend your money wisely, unless you are wanting to turn that Large Fortune into a Small Fortune and if that is your desire Mini-Sprints is not what you are seeking what you need is a Midget it does it so much faster.
Honest Dad himself

