[Quantrill]

The central region of the the country is having a meeting of all interested Lighting Sprint organizations in an attempt to standardize a few basic rules or guidelines and help determine an accepted tech procedure. This meeting is scheduled for November 16, 2013 in western Indiana. All organizations are encouraged to send some sort of representation. Whether you accept or decline any of the decisions/suggestions, your input and experience would be most appreciated. After all, we are all striving for the betterment of Lighting Sprint racing and this is an opportunity for every organization to contribute to that cause.

If interested, please contact Mark Billings (573) 289-7708 (mbillingsracing@gmail.com), Phil Heavelow (913) 371-5212 (jmillwright@kc.rr.com) or Damon Fortune (812) 208-7835 (dfortune@wolfesautoauctions.com) for exact time and location. Plus a means to determine body count for a lunch that Mr. Fortune has so graciously offered to provide. For a better controlled and efficient meeting, we would like to see 1-3 individuals for any interested organization. Therefore, it might be advantageous for those individuals to conduct their own regional meeting prior to the November meeting to determine what issues each group wants brought to the table for discussion.

Please note this is not intended to be a “binding” rules meeting. Simply an effort to determine some basic guidelines and tech procedures for some of the the upcoming “National” caliber events and possibly a standardization process between organizations. At this time, this is NOT an attempt to actually form a “membership required” National organization.

[SPIKER RACING PRODUCTS]

This is a great idea!!!!

[openwheel44]

The response has been encouraging. We anticipate some really good information and ideas will come of this meeting because there are some really experienced and knowledgeable people planning on attending. Looks like some "motor" men will also attend so maybe some accepted tech procedures, if nothing else, can be determined. Going to be an interesting meeting. Looks like just about every central region group plans on sending a rep or two.

Baby steps to National rules and this might be the first one..........

[DAD]

RULES***RULES***RULES*** K. I. S. S.

Mini sprints have always been and I guess always will be a class devoted to entry level racers. There will always be new racers starting out racing a few years and then moving either up and or out. They all have dreams of that elusive first win and how they are going to feel and to some even how they are going to get up on top of that wing for their first wing dance. They may spend tons and tons of money on cars, shocks, air cleaners, alcohol conversions and custom built motor chasing that dream. When it does not come over night, they naturally thing that the guy doing all the winning is cheating.

What Mini Sprints need to prosper and grow is a new classy name and super quick way to tec the motors to find and get rid of these cheaters amongst us.>>>>>> Like the old coach would say "You guy's ain't keeping your eye on the ball!"

It would be wise to stop paying so much attention to motor specs and pay more attention to what really wins races. Some of these things might be**********

1. Driver experience and ability. Some are born to be drivers, some have been tutored by exceptional good retired drivers and others just work years and years to become winning racers. It doesn't happen overnight.

2. Car and driver weight. I have been preaching for years and years about what would be a fair weight for all concerned. Any race car is controlled by weight. In go karts they have gone so far is to have the class determined by weight. Light, medium, heavy, and really heavy or "pumpkin patch". Then they found out that the Junior classes were faster than the Seniors so they mandated restrictors for the carburetors to keep the kids slower than their dads. The same thing I understand is done with the "sidewinder Junior class".

Grown ups grow up different. Some are 100 pound jockeys and some are 250 pound football players. We have proven that driver experience can make up a lot for the extra weight but the guy just starting out does not have a chance. Since we weigh every race. Why not set the minimum weight at the average weight of the field of the previous year. I can hear those motor tec people crying as I type these words of wisdom. These are the same people that spend so much time sitting on the scales before the race getting it down to the last ounce. All weight should be in the form of a lead plate placed right under the drivers BUTT. Then we would not have to worry about .049 roll bars and thousand of dollars spent on Titanium Bolts. If you got the money to spend on these things "BE MY GUEST".

3. Get a Tire company to sponsor the group. American Racer builds a very good tire. I think they would be responsive to being a major sponsor if we could come up with enough race cars buying their tires.
I have had several talks with Ron Ambrose one of the winningest TQ drivers, and Mini Sprint owners in the mid west. Ron's IDEA a really hard spec right rear tire. My reply to him was won't that play right into your hand and give you a big advantage over the other racers, His reply to me was a "WINK".
Lets go a couple of steps further with the tire idea.

a. Also set up a minimum durometer reading to be taken at the time of weighing the car and driver.

b. Have the tire company install a bar code serial number on each tire. Require that the same serial number be used for at least 4 to 6 feature races. (Sticker tires are faster no matter the compound)

c. The tire company would publish the minimum price for each tire. and the race director would be responsible for keeping track of the serial numbers (a simple smart phone ap.)

d. The tire company should publish the minimum selling price for their tires and donate a percentage of the sale to the points fund for each group. The problem with most spec tire deals is the racers seem to think the promoter is making a huge profit on the sale of tires, some times true sometime not. Lets try to get rid of that idea and perhaps if done right we could even save a few percent in our tire bill.

Good Luck on trying to figure out a way to keep these little motors down to 200HP instead of 220HP. The motor cycle manufactures did not leave a lot of room for improvement on what is already near perfection. You guys can keep on looking for cheater motors, but I doubt if you ever find one. Those guys are usually racing a little further back in the pack.

Honest Dad himself

[openwheel44]

That K.I.S.S. system got us where we are today. It worked for awhile but it's day has come and gone. No one wants to deal with this issue but I think most of us agree......something needs to be done. After talking to people in the various groups.......the same problem keeps popping up. Built motors. Even the "rumor" of built motors deters participation. Car counts are falling in most areas. Is it because of the economy or could it be this built motor issue? Can't do anything about the economy but something might be able to be done about this motor issue. Maybe not. But doing nothing doesn't seem to be working very well.

Let me ask you this...........If you were a new to racing, or at least this class and you came to few races to scope out the class and the competition only to find out there were strong suspicions that certain cars were indeed running expensive NON-STOCK motors while running up front, how inclined would you be to jump into this class? We need to get rid of the perception that built motors are out there. Better yet....get rid of the built motors. The new guy needs to feel like even with his inexperience, with time, he and his equipment can be competitive. Without having to invest in an expensive built motor.

DAD..........this may be a total waste of time. I don't think so. But at least the effort will be made. And trust me.....there are quite a few issues that could be address to unify this class. This motor situation isn't the only thing that is going to be addressed. Many of us look forward to the challenge.

Again..........baby steps if need be.

[Bradleyracing86]

What Mr. H said... also looking at standardized tech procedures, information sharing with other series.. Helping each other to help the sport grow. Look at attrition of drivers and why we don't have new drivers and do what we have to do to get guys on the track.

[DAD]

Phil

I appreciate your efforts. Right now I am working on a role over type go no go gauge. Instead of that clumsy sissors deal this would just be a gauge set at stock bore + .010 inch overbore for each motor type. When inserted into the bore through the spark plug hole if it layed down all the way the bore would be overbored if not it would be a legal.

My point is it is not in the motor as much as most people would like to believe. The driver that can hook up the horsepower that is available is the one that will win the races. I would work on a quick tec deal that could be done quickly at the end of the race. At midnight no one wants to be standing around watching a guy stick his dirty fingers in their motors.

We have all watched hot shoes from out of town come in beat our butts take our money, maybe sell a few cars and leave.

If you have ever watched they head out to the main with either a sticker right rear or maybe one heat cycle in them. Why not offer them a nice 3 or 4 race old spec take off tire to race on, save them the money of buying a tire and level the playing field out for the club racer.

The best way to get these things to run 3 wide across the finish line is weight and tires.

One big problem I see in the near future is motor shape. To make them work better in race bikes they are putting the trans under the crank case with real tall pans. The problem is this will place the motor very high in the race car, and make oil pick up a real problem.

Also until the economy picks up, and they start importing and selling pocket rockets again the availability of good motors will go down and price of good motor with low miles are going to go up. A motor with several thousand mile is not a real good choice for a race car.

The cost of fuel and people spending all their money trying to stay alive has also had a killer affect on racing in general, just look around the pits. I don't see a lot of traveling mini sprint teams in the near future.

Work on making racing cheaper with a good Tire rule and sponsor. More competitive with weight.

I for one would like to see several classes in the winter where we could take our better racers and have them pass on some knowledge to the newer racer on driving- set up and gearing. That is how we can increase car count.

Honest Dad himself

[MC@Performance Fab]

Do you EVER have anything POSITIVE to say?

[DAD]

Originally Posted by MC@Performance Fab Do you EVER have anything POSITIVE to say?

??? My gas tank is half full??

Honest Dad himself

[DAD]

Originally Posted by openwheel44 That K.I.S.S. system got us where we are today. It worked for awhile but it's day has come and gone. No one wants to deal with this issue but I think most of us agree......something needs to be done. After talking to people in the various groups.......the same problem keeps popping up. Built motors. Even the "rumor" of built motors deters participation. Car counts are falling in most areas. Is it because of the economy or could it be this built motor issue? Can't do anything about the economy but something might be able to be done about this motor issue. Maybe not. But doing nothing doesn't seem to be working very well. Let me ask you this...........If you were a new to racing, or at least this class and you came to few races to scope out the class and the competition only to find out there were strong suspicions that certain cars were indeed running expensive NON-STOCK motors while running up front, how inclined would you be to jump into this class? We need to get rid of the perception that built motors are out there. Better yet....get rid of the built motors. The new guy needs to feel like even with his inexperience, with time, he and his equipment can be competitive. Without having to invest in an expensive built motor. DAD..........this may be a total waste of time. I don't think so. But at least the effort will be made. And trust me.....there are quite a few issues that could be address to unify this class. This motor situation isn't the only thing that is going to be addressed. Many of us look forward to the challenge. Again..........baby steps if need be.

Phil I read your post once again. The only way one could imagine that one of these motors was a race motor or not would be looking at the air cleaner, granted we may have a few Engler injectors out there but nothing on the outside of our motor would denote a "Hank Scott" motor from a bone stock right off the bike motor. If your intentions are to make them look stock, then require stock air box only, then even the cheater motors would look stock.

We have a couple of brothers over here that run methanol with a stock motor and air box, and they do just fine against all the high dollar racers.

"Keep your eye on the ball"

Honest Dad himself