Midget Racing

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I´m moving this discussion from another thread to avoid hijacking. Here is the thread...

https://www.bobistheoilguy.com/foru...pentastar-teardown.329423/page-5#post-5479802

@sloinker Ethan Mitchell was 6th fastest of 29 tonight in Nebraska and starts on the pole if he makes the feature. Not bad for a team with no budget! He told me Sarah Fisher almost bought his engines but went another direction, paying twice as much. They´ve been blowing engines and not making races while this 17 year old from NC is starting to make waves. He thinks they will have teams knocking on their door soon.

We´ll see how Ethan does tonight.
 
IndyFan said:
Ethan Mitchell finished 6th. This was a big step forward for them!
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Watched that race on youtube. Great race! Your guy held his own for quite while. I will keep my eye out for him and see how that Honda racing engine develops in the series.
 
Midgets are my racing background. I grew up going to pavement tracks in the Midwest every weekend. I fielded my own car on asphalt for 13 years from the late 80’s. It is hard to beat that experience. Unfortunately midgets on pavement are virtually extinct. My best VW made 319 hp and by best Fontana made 380 hp. The car scaled at 915 pounds going in the trailer. The Chili Bowl for dirt lovers is a must. Sammy Swindell has won the chili bowl 5 times and will be doing a Q&A on BITOG in the near future. This is Sammy’s 50th year driving sprint cars.

David
 
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High Performance Lubricants said:
Midgets are my racing background. I grew up going to pavement tracks in the Midwest every weekend. I fielded my own car on asphalt for 13 years from the late 80’s. It is hard to beat that experience. Unfortunately midgets on pavement are virtually extinct. My best VW made 319 hp and by best Fontana made 380 hp. The car scaled at 915 pounds going in the trailer. The Chili Bowl for dirt lovers is a must. Sammy Swindell has won the chili bowl 5 times and will be doing a Q&A on BITOG in the near future. This is Sammy’s 50th year driving sprint cars.

David
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That is just cool. I love them on any surface, but really wish Pavement was more popular, too. I´m planning on being at the night before the 500 at Lucas Oil Raceway in Brownsburg (Really Clermont) Indiana. Sprints and Midgets that night! Love that oval! I´m hoping to be hanging out in the pits with the 4Piston guys.

When I was a good bit younger, we used to go over there for Thursday Night Thunder. Great crowds and an electric atmosphere because we all knew it was on national TV!
 
One of my most memorable experiences was at IRP. I was following Mel Kenyon and he slid up out of the groove. I thought ok I’ll just roll by him. Well he went up bounced off the wall and shot right done in front of me. After the race I walked down and asked Mel to explain that one. He said “if you know you are gonna hit the wall you hit it with your foot on the floor and turn the car at the last second and you’ll bounce off the wall headed where you need to go”. I had already seen the proof. Another living legend in our sport.
 
High Performance Lubricants said:
One of my most memorable experiences was at IRP. I was following Mel Kenyon and he slid up out of the groove. I thought ok I’ll just roll by him. Well he went up bounced off the wall and shot right done in front of me. After the race I walked down and asked Mel to explain that one. He said “if you know you are gonna hit the wall you hit it with your foot on the floor and turn the car at the last second and you’ll bounce off the wall headed where you need to go”. I had already seen the proof. Another living legend in our sport.
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Wow, Lol! That is awesome! Sounds like he was calling the 8 ball with a billards shot! Great story!
 
High Performance Lubricants said:
One of my most memorable experiences was at IRP. I was following Mel Kenyon and he slid up out of the groove. I thought ok I’ll just roll by him. Well he went up bounced off the wall and shot right done in front of me. After the race I walked down and asked Mel to explain that one. He said “if you know you are gonna hit the wall you hit it with your foot on the floor and turn the car at the last second and you’ll bounce off the wall headed where you need to go”. I had already seen the proof. Another living legend in our sport.
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I´ll bet you know Johnny Parsons, Jr. I grew up with his son, Jimmy. We used to go watch him race sprints and midgets when we were little kids. Of course we loved it when he ran the Indy 500. We got to be extras in a Mello Yello commercial that wound up never running because they moved the sponsorship from JP to another driver after it was shot.

I also used to love watching Rich Vogler race. I heard he was kind of crazy behind the wheel of just about anything. We´d watch him slide through the turns at Indy qualifying Jonathan Byrd´s cars. JP once told me that he flew with Vogler in an airplane....once. Said Vogler scared the $h** out of him flying at low altitude. Lol!

Those were great days! I grew up in Speedway, not far from turn 4 at IMS. Even when you don´t come from a racing family, growing up there gets it into your blood. My elementary school principal was and still is a good friend of AJ Foyt. We used to buy tires at Aldo Andretti´s Firestone dealership near IMS, too. Lots of little connections like that to racing.
 
Another great Mel Story was at the speedrome. I can’t remember when but probably early 90’s. Coming out of 4 for the green a couple cars got together and Mel hit one with the left front wheel. It bent the inside lip of the rim. There is only about1/8 inch clearance for the caliper so the wheel rolled around and locked. He would typically carry the LF at that track anyway but he left a trail of smoke going into 1 and 3. The flagman held the black flag for about 10 laps then put it away. The tire blew, then when the wheel ground down to the bolts in the headlocks it left showers of sparks. Eventually it wore the wheel down far enough and it rubbed through the lower frame rail. The impressive part was while all this was going on he started from the tail that night and committed to the outside groove.
At the rate of probably 4 feet a lap he passed the entire field with 3 1/2 wheels. When he took the checkered flag everyone in the stands was on their feet to give him a standing ovation. To this day I have never seen a more impressive example of driving anywhere. There are not many people that can pull some like that off.
 
High Performance Lubricants said:
Another great Mel Story was at the speedrome. I can’t remember when but probably early 90’s. Coming out of 4 for the green a couple cars got together and Mel hit one with the left front wheel. It bent the inside lip of the rim. There is only about1/8 inch clearance for the caliper so the wheel rolled around and locked. He would typically carry the LF at that track anyway but he left a trail of smoke going into 1 and 3. The flagman held the black flag for about 10 laps then put it away. The tire blew, then when the wheel ground down to the bolts in the headlocks it left showers of sparks. Eventually it wore the wheel down far enough and it rubbed through the lower frame rail. The impressive part was while all this was going on he started from the tail that night and committed to the outside groove.
At the rate of probably 4 feet a lap he passed the entire field with 3 1/2 wheels. When he took the checkered flag everyone in the stands was on their feet to give him a standing ovation. To this day I have never seen a more impressive example of driving anywhere. There are not many people that can pull some like that off.
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That is just incredible! Love the stories, man!
 
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The Voglers were lived near us in IL. I watched his Dad Don and rich at the stadium in Joliet. It seems like almost all of the hotshots passed through there at one time or another. Johnny Parsons Jr ran consistently at my home track which was Grundy County Speedway in Morris. Ryan Newman started there as did Kenny Irwin. You are correct. Those were certainly the good old days.
 
JP for awhile (maybe still does) drove a school bus for a neighboring school district to a special needs school that serves kids from surrounding districts. I´m the principal of a large middle school across the street from that school. His ex-daughter-in-law teaches for me and she told me he was driving kids every day over there. I was going to go over there one morning and ask the kids on the bus if they realized their driver had started 12 Indy 500s with two top 5 finishes! Lol, I´d love to see their faces. The problem is that the times of day he would drop off and pick up are VERY busy for me. Still, I´ve just got to do it sometime. It would be good to see JP, for sure.
 
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