Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

I'll take your word for it on the Legends cars being boring. What I can't picture is that mocrosprints put on a good race somewhere. Husets Speedway is under 3/8 mile. I call it a nice 11/32 mile track. Even that seems to large for micro sprints to put on any kind of racy show.

For me which if any  support class depends on the track concession stands.  With a good concession stand I can stomach about any class. 

The food at tracks might be an excellent topic for discussion.

The Lightning Sprints put on a pretty good show on a 1/3 mile dirt track.

Lightning Sprints are scaled down 410 sprint cars. They use a midget sized chassis with 13" wheels, chain drive, powered by a 1000 cc inline 4 cylinder motorcycle engine topped off with scaled down nose and top wings.  There are several chassis manufacturers. Used ones are in the under $10,000 range. They are fast.

http://www.iralightningsprints.com/

Racing is unique in that if I go see a professional racing series I have to watch a bunch of local hobbyists.  Thinking back to a WoO show in the 2000's that drew 60 Super Stocks.  There were only three heats of Sprints which were outnumbered two to one.  The Stock Car part of the program became an ordeal for die hard open wheel fans.  Streaming has mute and I can change channels so I don't run into that situation watching from home.  We have 305's locally if a person can handle sitting through a bunch of classes.  I Try to still get out to the tracks when it's all Sprints or I can handle a three class show like Husets.  

Stan Meissner

I agree 100%.  Maybe you and I are like Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly in Step Brothers.  Do you own nunchucks?

My take on the micros was they didn't have enough power and way too much tire to put on a good race.  And the tracks they raced on weren't good tracks for them.  I always thought they needed to be on "larger" go kart tracks, like over 1/8 of a mile to 1/5 but there's not a lot of those tracks around.  Even the track they built at Jackson seemed to be too small and tight for them.  They were cool cars but just not designed to be on the types of tracks that were around here.  Now if there was a reasonably cheap way to get them more power (a lot more) I think they could put on a pretty good show.  I've seen some races on youtube where I think they were using 1,000 cc motors and they were fun to watch.  The issue with that is those motors are a lot more expensive and at that point, why not buy a 305 sprint car?  My thinking on a support class like this is they need to come up with a car that uses the base engine from a Honda Civic or Ford Focus (where there's millions of them sitting in junk yards) and use that engine instead of motorcycle engines.  

Also I was at a midget race at Husets in somewhere around 1995.  They had a ton of cars and I was expecting it to be great.  If memory serves me correct, they all ran on the bottom, nose to tail and I don't think I saw one pass.  They never even got into lapped traffic.  Husets is a great track for sprint cars and the late model stock cars but not really for much else.

Yeah, I agree. It seems like the micros at Husets hit their top speed at the flagstand and just kept the pedal to the floor until the checkers.

I'm sure I was at that midget race. I think Marty Barber was in a midget that night and they really hyped it. One of the guys wasn't running the bottom. I think he was the guy that flipped half the length of the back stretch and went to the hospital. 

Yeah, I'm sure the high banks of Husets didn't do them any favors either.  From what I saw, at the tracks they were running was they had too much grip (no offense to any of the micro drivers) and were pretty easy to drive.  So there wasn't a lot of mistakes made and they didn't have enough power to run the cushion, so they just all ran the bottom with no real opportunities to pass.

Now that you say that about the midget race, I do remember a guy got up and ran the cushion but I don't think he passed a lot of cars?  I could be wrong?  I also don't remember anyone crashing at all or even someone spinning out.  But we're talking almost 30 years ago, so I could be wrong.  About the only thing I really remember is thinking it was going to be a great race and being let down.

I like a bunch of different things and don't really care what's racing. I like the variety. Go to Grandview and get the modifieds. Super late models at Port. I used to like when the Super Sportsman would go to Big Diamond and be the support for the modifieds. If 305's on the card, ok, I'll roll with it.

I think my favorite show though is Outlaws at I-55 with the Powri midgets. Its also helps that it is probably one of my favorite tracks to attend a race at.

I've seen both.  I think Legends are terrible on some tracks, but I've seen them on tracks where the show is great.  For example, at Beaver Dam, I think the Legends put on a great show, and the Micros are not that good.  I've seen the Legends at other tracks (like Knoxville a couple of times) and the show was not good at all.  

Hopefully I never have to see the Micro Midgets they had at Lincoln on Sunday , ever again.

I'm not sure if the dwarf cars that I like out here on the West coast and the Legend cars you are talking about are the same, but on a small track, the dwarf cars put on some really good racing. I'd be interested to know the difference between the two.

Can't say for sure what the difference is now but at one time the only difference was one had fenders the other did not.

With WOO new purchase, I would think in time the ASCS could be the support class.  That would be some very good nights of racing..

I can't disagree that it would be good nights of racing.  However, both series are attempting to fill the stands with their events alone.  Since most Outlaw shows in sprint car rich areas already fill the stands, I wouldn't be able to give a logical reason why they would also schedule another "expensive" series to run the same night.  Their business model has to make sense.  If the Outlaws already fill the stands, there is no reason to take a potential stand-filling event off of the ASCS schedule and combine crowds.  This makes no business sense at all.  

Now, if they're going to an area where the Outlaws are having trouble filling the stands on their own, it may be a good decision.  ??  

I love me a good 2 division show. My favorite support divisions for 410's are super late models, modifieds and 360 sprints. Of course those are headline divisions at many tracks. It depends on the track and if it's a weeknight or weekend show. For weeknight shows or a track/event that's likely to draw a large field of 410's, then I don't think there is a need for any support division. I'm not a fan of any division that has 4 cylinder or 2 stroke engines, unless it's a small track (1/3 or smaller). 

A

IMO support divisions should never have their A main before the 410 A main, unless it is a circumstance in which the track is too wet and needs to be widened out and slicked off a little. 

A

I can see both sides. It's cool to see these top drivers in the WoO and High Limit series go head-to-head without any distractions. More focus on sprint car action can be exciting! However, it can also feel a bit repetitive without the geometry dash world of other classes on the track.