Forum: Minnesota Dirt Track Racing Forum (go)
Moderators: StanM

Chuck,

Jackson has a great set of rules for their 317 class. Maybe you should contact Jon and get a set rules. The engines are restricted enough that you can run them for two seasons before freshing. As we all know this greatly reduces the cost of racing. I can say the tire bill is also much less with these small engines. All in all it just makes good sense.

Push Rod, you are right, and that is what needs to be looked at in this area, something to cut the cost of these cars. I don't care what anyone says, You start spending 25K to 50K to go out to win races that might pay 1K to win, 200 to start, it's not a sport for the little guy. I was looking at the MSA rules from eastern Wisc, they have a good set of rules also. The only thing I don't like about Jon's 317 class is the carb, if your going to run sprint cars, why not just put on some injectors. I'l bet they can be bought for the same price and are easier to work with.

Anyway, the bottom line is, the cost of putting one of these cars on the track needs to come down along with maintance and running them week to week.

Does the MSA still require Steel Wheels?

Chuck, I couldn't agree with you more. The MSA does have a nice set of rules. Something is wrong when you look in the Hoseheads classifieds and see used ASCS engines selling for over $20,000. It would be nice to have an economical series close by, so we don't have to travel 300 to 500 miles every weekend.

From the pictures on the MSA site, it looks as though you can run aluminum wheels.

Brad

Chuck,

Check out the Midwest 305 Sprints. Their rules package includes fuel injection whitch makes things better than the carb. deal.

http://www.midwest305sprintcars.com/rules.html

Chuck,

The thing I like the most about the Jackson rules is the carb. If you add injectors the rpm goes up than you have to spend money on a better bottom end. For instance last year at the 305 nationals in Knoxville a guy shows up with a $ 20,000 305 from Wesmar. As far as the cost of the carb to the injector you can buy a piece of junk injector for about the same as the carb but someone is always going to go out and buy an Engler injector and a fancy high speed than what happened to the cost of the 305. We run some of the Midwest stuff and it is already getting out of hand. It would be nice if we could for once keep a class of race cars that a normal working person could afford to race.

Maybe the rule should be that the car and motor has to be home built, no over the counter cars or motors. That used to work, there were dozens of cars like this one around here. Matter of fact, we might as well say they have to haul them in open trailers to really make them affordable. Not only did it work but that racing back in the 60's made a lot of us life long fans so it must have been pretty good.

Of course I'm just dreaming but I agree that something has to be done to control the costs. The key in all this is having a home track or several tracks with enough race dates so interest can be built. I go to a lot of races other than Sprints and there's a lot of guys who might try Sprints if they could (a) race often close to home and (b) make the class more affordable. It's pretty hard the way things are now for example to convince a guy who's racing a Midwest Mod three nights a week within a 50 mile radius of home to switch to Sprints. There's not even half the amount of races and the travel would break the budget of most working men.

Stan Meissner (Check out the photo gallery and blog)

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I think that we need to concentrate on building the sprint car programs in Arlington, Jackson, and Redwood. I have seen shows in Jackson, and the teams seem very competitive. I live in Arlington and I don't miss a single week, and I go to Redwood every few weeks. I personally love watching the IMCA's run. IMCA is working to make sprint car racing very affordable. I don't think that you could get drivers from other classes to run wingless, or the winged sprint car racers to move to wingless or have another car.

Local LAWN Enforcement
Arlington, MN

Hoping to race sprints someday!

I think the main problem with costs for local sprint racers is "Tires". What does a right rear run now? $180 to $190? I say make the drivers run the hardest hockey puck for a right rear they can purchase so they can get a couple of shows on a right rear.

Chuck, I couldn't agree with you more. The MSA does have a nice set of rules. Something is wrong when you look in the Hoseheads classifieds and see used ASCS engines selling for over $20,000. It would be nice to have an economical series close by, so we don't have to travel 300 to 500 miles every weekend.

From the pictures on the MSA site, it looks as though you can run aluminum wheels.

Brad

I was wondering who the "MSA" is and what is there website? If there were non-wing sprints in the twin cities area, I would field a car weekly.

David.

To help control the costs for everyone why don't we just Keep It Simple Stupid(KISS). Run 360 cid, any head you want(steel, aluminum, ASCS, open, etc...), restrict the injector stacks down to 1 3/4", heck go as small as 1 1/2", and put some hard friggin tires on, LEFT REAR & RIGHT REAR!!! This would cut down on engine costs and help out the weekly operating budget tremendously. Right now, JUST methanol and average tire consumption, a Jackson type sprint car is going to cost $500/night. That's not including anything else. Cut that tire bill in half at least, and reduce the amount of investment and maintenance costs on the engine, and maybe more teams would be able to compete weekly. Hey, you know what, the racing would probably be better too. Period the end................

KISS is only like 6 races and the tire is determined by the individual tracks.

Got the chance to meet Jon Stanbrough at Angell Park one night and he is way cool and the excellent choice as the Non-Winged Driver of the Year last season.

I know what ya mean there Apprentice, just messin' around.

Sounds like IMCA without the claim.

What would be wrong about expanding on the IMCA deal to bring in more sponsors and purse money? Take it to more tracks and build on what we've got going where there's already 20 or so cars? If nothing else adopt similar rules so some of those guys would come and race the open shows.

The complaint always seems to be the claimer and the purses so maybe there's a way to work closely with that deal instead of starting something entirely different? There aren't enough cars up here by the Cities to have two or three clubs anymore all on different pages. Personally with the travel expense I don't see why we should be running ASCS type rules when they're rarely coming up here anyways.

Some might say they want to be legal to run with the Knoxville 360's. My question for them is how often are they going to do that, once, twice a year maybe? Should everybody else racing around the Twin Cities who can't afford to travel be held hostage by a few teams that are able to?

Seems to me that we've got some guys who have cars sitting home in their garage that are stuck between the IMCA ASCS deals. They can't travel to run ASCS or Jackson and don't want to race with the IMCA. Am I way off again sprntr?

Stan Meissner (Check out the photo gallery and blog)

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Stan, you are not way off. All I know, if I were a car owner and put a car back out there, I wouldn't want to win a feature for 300.00 and get claimed. And I sure don't want to put another 360 motor together for 20K + and run for a 1000.00 to win. The purses we have today were the same purses if not smaller then back in the 70's. We need a class that we can build a motor for under 10K and go out and win with it. Put a tire on there that isn't a brick, but will last more then 1 race and take the wings off so it doesn't put so much strain on the driveline. Then we will see so races. But we still need a purse that is half ways decent.

Great topic. Let's discuss it further.

ChuckP., the basic sprint cars are pretty much all the same, give or take a little, except for the engines and tires. Give us your idea of what you would like to see in engine rules and tire rules.

Then please give us a position by position rundown of what you consider a halfways decent purse, keeping in mind that it needs to be appealing to the race teams to want to go and race for that kind of money, and the total purse needs to be affordable so more local promoters feel they can afford to host these events.

This post is not intended to bash anyone or any group, but rather to see if there is any solutions to help bring these "stale" sprint cars out of retirement, as Stan has suggested.

Hopefully we can get some interesting and civilized dialog going on this subject.

I appreciate anyone who has anything to bring to the conversation...CZ

I once heard that advice is what you ask for when you've already made up your mind but cant accept it. Reinventing the wheel usually brings you back full circle.

option 1 ASCS 20K motor 1K to win 20 to 1 ratio lots of travel

option 2 IMCA 10K motor 1K? to win 10 to 1 ratio 2 weekly tracks mini tour nat points

talk Kopelah into sanct IMCA Sprints Fri nite? 3 weekly shows 150 mi radius from metro?

option 3 305 sprints 5k mtr? 500? to win 10 to 1 5k of your budget could go to a trailer or travel

start from scratch non wing unknown car count nervous promotors risky accidents etc not much history in area (my generation anyways)

As a group of stale cars either approach IMCA rep with concerns and by participating predictably your voices would start to carry some weight and could influence a change in the differences. Or hang onto your stuff and after a long enough time use em for vintage racing

All this reminds me why I have my personal track in west mn to play at my leaisure with my mini sprints and two seat mod Now thats fun wake up sat morn throw some coffee on while I check the car out finish 1st cup coffee and go burn about 30 laps before breakfast. Thank god winters over

That's along the lines of what I've been thinking doc. Jackson is 400 miles round trip from the Twin Cities and there aren't many from up here chasing the ASCS deal to Sorth Dakota or wherever they're racing these days. It sure ain't at any track within 150 miles of where I live, we see more IRA and WoO racing around here than any ASCS. Not that there's anything wrong with ASCS racing but I'm not a wealthy enough fan to chase it and I've got a yard to take care of on Saturdays up until about 2 or 3 in the afternoon. Only nearby tracks work for me.

IMCA has two weekly tracks and 20 or so cars running with them already. I don't think Bob Allen would refuse any sponsorship or chase anybody away that wanted to get involved building that deal up. What's the old adage about politics, work within the available system?

As far as non-wing history there's plenty of that up here but it ended in 1979 when North Starr closed down. A lot of the people involved in the Sprints weren't even born yet when that deal close down. I'd like to see the non-wing but they're pretty volatile, especially when you've got a lot of banking on the tracks. There's no 305's up here so your first year you've got 5, 6 cars, not going to work in an area where there's full fields of everything else. They've got 35 or 40 Supers and B Mods signing in every week around here, the purses are reasonable and it's working for the tracks. That's where the IMCA cars have a better shot at expanding than something new starting up because IMCA already has a base group to work with.

I think Bob keeps close tabs on the IMCA and doesn't put any more travel or expense on them than they can handle. Seeing as their home tracks are Arlington and Redwood most of them are based south and west of the Cities. Going north and east (Kopellah) on a Friday afternoon is a tough deal if you've ever fought the Friday cabin traffic. Another factor, Kopellah is Wissota, they're partial to their divisions and the fans aren't exactly what you'd call "Sprint Car friendly." Matter of fact these Wissota Super Stock and Modified fans pretty much despise Sprint Cars from eastern Wisconsin all the way out to Montana. I think it's an inbred trait...

Stan Meissner (Check out the photo gallery and blog)

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Can we get Bob's opinion on here some how. Not to steal your thunder Chuck but lets get a local sprint promotor's opinion who has stood his ground to be a grassroots kinda guy. Find out exact purse any flucations with car counts. How many head claims did they see last year? Annual point funds payout. And how many father son combos started their careers down there. How long have they run sprints down there? We ran down there in 94? -96 and I liked it for the most part, I remember running at the supernationals and trying to figure out where to put all the stuff we got from the contingency sponsors Leroy was about the best and fairest tech guy i met, is he still there? Everbody could take a little space on their haulers advertising the weekly sprints at Arlington and could even pull in some new fans. For all the ideas on here it might be time for a SUMMIT MEETING of the powers to be.