Mini Sprint Racing in the Tulsa Expo Center

Although I normally start my blogs off with a report of the last week's racing activity, this week I wanted to start with ‘THE BIG NEWS’. It was announced during Saturday evening’s A.M.S.A. drivers meeting that upright mini sprints will be included in this year’s Tulsa Shoot-Out. If you’re not familiar with this event, it is the event run several days before the infamous Chili Bowl at the Tulsa Exposition Center. The event will be run on the same track as the Chili Bowl. The dates of the event are Thursday December 29th through Saturday January 1st.  The mini sprints will shed their wings for the race.  This event has the potential to be one of the biggest events in the country for mini sprints.  It was indicated at the drivers meeting that this will be a multi-year deal.  It holds the potential to draw competitors from points across the country. It also provides anyone with dreams of competing in the Chili Bowl a cost effective alternative.  Calls are already coming in for car rentals and some are even considering purchasing cars just for the event. I am planning on doing a more comprehensive story on the event in the coming weeks—so stay tuned.  Here a few pictures of the track that I took when I was at the Chili Bowl a few years ago.

Here is a link to a video that I found on http://www.maximumdirt.com/ that shows more of the track | Click Here |

Here is some in-car camera footage that is pretty good also | Click Here |

This past weekend we ran with the American Mini Sprint Association at Lawrenceburg Speedway. I am not sure why, but car count was down with only 23 mini sprints in the pits. I am guessing that it might have been because of summer vacations, etc. Despite the smaller turnout, racing action was still intense with plenty of good drivers and equipment in attendance.

My night of racing got off to a great start with a visit by Don and Adam Waters of AFCO Racing Shocks to our shop. They set me up with two of their brand new double adjustable gas shocks to try for the weekend. The father and son team came in and set to work outfitting our right and left rear corners of the cars with the shocks. The whole installation of both shocks and remote adjustment controls took less than one hour.

My first session on the new shocks was hot laps. Although we only got five or so laps, I could instantly tell a difference. True to Don’s words, the car felt much more stable or settled. I was pretty amazed with how well it transitioned from straight-away to corner back on to straight-away. Although tempted to start adjusting on the shocks for the heat race Don and Adam said that the car looked really good and that the shock indicators were dead on—so just leave it alone.

A quick storm passed through prior to our heat race, causing more question regarding our setup. I started my heat in fourth place and quickly moved into third on the first lap. The remainder of the race I chased Rod Henning and T.J. Heil. I was very happy with the way the car handled during the entire heat race. While we were able to reel Heil in a little, I was never close enough to try passing him.

For the feature we raised our car up and put a few extra turns in a couple corners. I started the race outside the third row. For the first few laps of the race the car was on the tight side and I slid back a few spots. On the yellow I started cranking on the cockpit adjusters and was able to get the car to a point where it was very comfortable for me. Through a few passes and some attrition, I made it up to fourth place, however my last pass happened just prior to a caution so I was placed back in fifth place where I finished the race.

After the race Don asked me to fill out a research and development form for him. This made me take more time to stop and think about what the car was doing than normally. I was really impressed with the more stable feel of the gas shocks. After hot laps and the heat race I would have told you I would have liked them even if they weren’t adjustable. However, after missing the setup by a bit in the feature, but having the opportunity to compensate on-track with the cockpit adjusters—I liked the shocks even more.  We have put together a short product video for Speed Partz TV.  Just click the play button below to watch the video (right pointing arrow)  We hope you enjoy it.  |CLICK HERE| for purchase information.

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