Dirt Midget Question
Well, since they just ran the Turkey Bowl yesterday, timing seems right for this question:
Love watching these guys, but the subtleties of the classes/series structures eludes me.
One fundamental difference I note is that some front suspensions use coil-overs, while others are torsion bars.
Are these two different classes, or just two legal ways to accomplish the same result?
Two ways of accomplishing the same result. Torsion bars are more traditional. Which type is used depends on the preferences of the owner and/or the driver. While I haven't kept up, at one time coilovers were more commonly used on asphalt.
Midgets
Pretty much all dirt midgets are running coils in the front, bars in the rear, Brady Bacon is running a 4 bar Beast chassis, a personal preference.
Sprint cars, (the photo on the right) are pretty much all 4 bar, both wing and non wing. Some non-wing guys run a 5 bar setup, the 5th bar is a sway bar up front. Again personal preference.
Thanks
Jeff
Here's their 6 page rule book dealing with Dirt and Western States USAC Midgets.
http://www.usacracing.com/assets/fil..._dirt_2017.pdf
thx, that kinda implies the two cars are NOT in the same category?Originally Posted by jeff88ix
(I see minor body differences, but thought they were both USAC Midgets)
No?
cheers
width of rear tires another giveaway.. Love the 6 page rule book... If only....
Okie
No, Sprints and Midgets are definitely two different categories. There are some variation between rulesets from sanctioning body to sanctioning body and series/promoters, but most don't allow Midgets to have forward facing ram-air type ducting to intake.
Midgets run 13" wheels usually limited to 10" width on RR, Sprints run 15" wheels with 18" RR limit.
Sprints usually run on methanol.
Midgets are 4 cylinders and Sprints are V-8.
The Sprints have a wheelbase about 1 foot longer or more.
If you were to see the cars side by side it would be quite apparent.
Turkey Night
Slightly off topic, and I don't have an answer to your questions, but a minor correction. It's actually called the "Turkey Night GP".
I was there last night and watched Chris Bell and Kyle Larson put on a heck of a show. It's been a long time tradition going with a buddy of mine. I don't think I've missed one in the last 30 years (I have a very understanding wife...).
Bell was faster and won, but Larson kept him honest and got by a couple of times, but Bell always got back by.
Perhaps confused with the chilibowl.
http://www.chilibowl.com/
my tongue-in-cheek use of "Turkey Bowl" was taken too seriously, but thanks for the technical answers :-)
Turkey Bowl Midget question.
Lotus7.
For someone from road racing these car are very foreign. I crewed on a Midgets for 20 year and still go to races and have a lot of friends there still. I was lucky enough to work with one of the most talented drivers of the 70' and 80's "I will give you a hint and you can look it up if you want. 1975-76 USAC National midget Champ. 7 time Western states champ. So yea we won a lot of races.
I also was working on sprint cars at this years race. We had 5 cars entered, put 4 in the main and won the main with Tyler Courtney. And that was all Tyler we dropped a cylinder about lap 10. But he jumped up top and drove from 4th to the lead.
I am not trying to blow my own horn. Just trying say I know of what I speak. There are many builder of sprint cars and midgets and some that build their own. The 4 bar torsion bar cars have been around since the late 60's, early 70's so as you can imagine there has been a ton of development in these cars. The truth is that there is really not much difference between the manufactures. I think we had 3 diffrent brands there last night and all were fast. The coil over cars started in the late 70's and have success as well. It really comes down to set up and driver. The great thing about this sport is you can buy a lot of good used equipment for not a lot of money. The midget motors are insane on price now. For a Toyota I am hearing $50,000! Maybe more. Most cant afford that so they run Esslingers which was based on the old 2300 pinto motor. Both midgets and sprint car all run metinoal not gas. Gas is prohibited for safety reasons. To valotale Gas was outlawed after the fire at Indy in 1964. Huge fireball on the first lap because of gas.
Sprint car run Small block Chevy for the most part there are some Fords and Mopar's. Most tracks run either 410 CI or 360 CI.
This race was for 360's with restrictors. We run a spec. tire on the right rear but the rest are open. Thats kinda the basics.
If you really want to know more about how these cars are built and set up. Find a copy of Steve Smiths book Midget Chassis Technology. My buddy Wally Pankratz help him put it together.
BTW...all those kids that think drifting is "New Thing" and they invented it......never went to a sprint car race!....LOL
Sleepy Tripp?
Ron Schuman?
Sleepy Tripp...You win a prize. We never won Turkey Night....finished 2nd to Shuman once I think.
Thx for details.
$50,000 ?!?! I had always mistakenly thought that Midgets were truly affordable.
What do they do to a 4 cylinder Toyota to make it worth 50k?
Maybe
Had to be purchased from SCCA Enterprises?
Lola: When four springs just aren't enough.
Toyota engine cost
That is the problem and why the car counts are so far down. They get over 300 cars for the Chili bowl because its a short indoor track people feel they can compete with a motor that does not make the power the Toyota do. But they same guys still win for the most part.
Keith Kunz has built an midget empire running the best guys and equipment in the country.
He is to midget racing what Joe Gibbs is to Nascar. I give him a lot of credit. But it comes at a cost.
They show up with 3 nascar type haulers and a loaded for bear.
The chassis are, the engines not so much. Kind of the opposite problem with SCCA and $70K+ new Formula Fords.Thx for details.
$50,000 ?!?! I had always mistakenly thought that Midgets were truly affordable.
What do they do to a 4 cylinder Toyota to make it worth 50k?
I've been away from dirt track racing a long time, but the rise of the 360 Sprint was due to the exorbitant price of the 410's. The midgets had the Ford Focus for awhile. Now I understand HPD has come to the plate with a crate K24 motor.
On the plus side sponsors are much easier to come by, purse money is there, and you can sell t-shirts in the pits and come out okay. At least we did in the mid-90's. Cheap entry fees too!
That's my point of reference as well. Figured these breathed-on factory-assembly-line motors were not stupidly expensive, apparently not true.
Then again, I've heard people are paying $13k for FFit engines these days, when a whole Fit street car can be had used for less :-)
Those crate motors from the factory aren't stupidly expensive. It's the classes/series that have a much more open ruleset where the motors get really expensive....and engines are built by shops like Gaerte, Ed Pink and Roush Yates.
midget motors
This is nothing different from nearly any class/type/etc where the biggest checkbook wins until no one enters anymore and entries drop to a few then at least for awhile guys come back in with used cheaper equipment until the cycle starts over. In the case of the midgets it started cheap with V8 60's, Mercury outboards, then offy's, Chevy 2, Sesco's, VW's,Pinto's, 60 degree V6 Chevy's, etc,etc . Name a series and see the progression and it will always be the same!
Or the pie gets sliced with the introduction of a spec engine series of one sort or another. The Ford Focus Midget series was down considerably on HP and cost. Those folks weren't racing the other folks. Focus engines start to dry up so in comes HPD to the rescue (again
Midget motors
This is in response to Jerry. I agree with you to a point. It got out of hand when a car owner based a team out of Indy and ran it like an indy car operation. Paid crew. unlimited budget. testing all the time.
In 1986 we had a cosworth engine. It cost about $12,000. A lot of money. BUT we ran 52 races in 86-and in 87 and we won 26 mains each of those years! We had only one motor!....We were going 18-20 races between rebuilds. We never lost a motor. Thats 104 races! The Cosworth was the best thing to ever happen to midget racing. Then they started building the push rod motors because they were allowed a 165 inches verus the Cosworth at 122.
When this started it was said that oh it will be cheaper!...guys can build them themselves!...Yea, we see how that turned out.
And no we were not just running local shows. We ran against the best in the country.
So it does not have to be the way it is now...most of the people I know now run sprint cars. Less travel and cheaper to run.
A question, (not a challenge), how is that so? Seems these guys run many dozens of events, often 4 tracks in four nights in four locations ...
Again, maybe I'm missing the subtlety of the different classes/series.
I understand how is what so?
there are basically two teams that run all of the national shows.Keith Kunz and Clauson-Marshal That accounts for 10-12 cars the rest is made up of local racers.
There are other shows that people travel for like the Chili bowl (over 300 cars!) and turkey night...there are others as well. But very few travel the whole schedule. It has always been that way. Too much money. Keep in mind most purses are only a $1,000.00 to win. And based on what the top teams have in people and equimpment My guess is it cost over $5,000. a night to run a car at that level.
So what, they make it up on volume?
WoO stuff is super demanding.
Out here you could run VRA or SCRA, maybe 20 races from March to November and never have to travel more than a few hours.
Ventura's Turkey night entry fee was $50. That covered both Thurs and Fri. If you won both the Sprint and Midget races ARP and Mr. Naylor were paying $50K.
You are spot on Darryl.
The midgets are just too expensive and there is always a good supply of good used stuff for the low buck sprint car guys.
And Jimmy is the best!..I have known him over 30 years....best promoter anywhere!
He still blame me for "dork" cars!........ Thats what Naylor calls them. Dwarf cars.....lol
Out of 25 races this year Kunz and Marshall- Clauson won 21 of them! 4 races were won by other teams....so that gives you an idea of what the local racer is up against. And why the fields are small.
Ha ha. I raced one of those 'dork' cars with the CDCRA back in the early 90's. Naylor seemed to like them then. We raced on Sat. nights with the USAC TQ's, Midgets or Sprints. Never on the card with the Street stocks, pony stocks or bombers. He was also paying us purses very close to what the bigger boys were getting. . . and it was costing us a fraction of what it was costing them. We sold the car in 94 or 95. I understand the engine/shock rules and costs have reeled them in quite a bit since then.
Here is how Kunz does it. The article is pretty candid, mainly because it comes from his mouth. It truly is like many of the professional open wheel teams. The funded drivers support the team so you can have a non-funded driver or two.
http://www.thedriversproject.com/201...ing-an-empire/
-Mike (who was lucky enough to run a (TQ) midget this past weekend, just on the wrong surface
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