The Shootout – The good Lord willing, we are headed to the Tulsa Shootout to end out our year. We are busy trying to put together a car and motor to take to the Tulsa Shootout this year. Driving at the famed Tulsa Expo Center has been on my bucket list ever since my first visit to the Chili Bowl several years ago. Up until the lightning sprints were added to the Tulsa Shootout racing card it was however near the bottom of the list. I had checked into renting a midget for the Chili Bowl, but quickly discovered that it was beyond my pocket book. Last year when the lightning sprints made their first visit to the Expo Center I was loaded to go when we received news the evening before our departure that my father-in-law had passed away. So this year we’ll be giving it another shot. I do have mixed feelings about going since I would like to support the Midwest Mini Sprint Association who will be running that same weekend just a few short hours away in Fort Wayne, Indiana as part of the Rumble Series. I am hopeful that the event at Fort Wayne goes well and becomes an annual thing. We have received calls and e-mails from several drivers that plan on attending and are scratching their heads on setup. Unfortunately when it comes to racing on concrete we don’t have much advice to offer—due to our own inxperience. If I didn’t have a desire to drive at the Expo Center at least once, it would be impossible for me to justify the added expense of the trip to Tulsa when there will be great racing going on so close to home. I am however looking forward to the opportunity to meet lightning sprint drivers from around the country. We’ve done a few events that pulled in drivers from multiple states and have always found the off track banter to be almost as fun as the racing. I would like to wish the best of luck to drivers competing at both events this year.
I am hoping that we can revive the Tulsa Shootout Journal we did last year. You can revisit all of last year's entries still by at http://tulsa.blogspot.com/ I would also love to do one from the Rumble. If anyone is interested please let me know. I can set it up so you can e-mail or text news in from your cell phone. Just drop me an e-mail at sfasse-at-fozmarketing.com.
visit: www.speedpartz.com
A recent FaceBook entry caught my eye. It was a photo of Ryan Broughton’s ride for 2012 – a full size winged sprinter. Ryan is coming off a stellar year in the mini sprints that saw him notch a string of wins. It was only a few short years ago that I used Ryan in my book, Mini Sprint Racing 101, as an example of the type of driver the sport was attracting. Ryan made the step from go-karts to upright mini sprints—just as his dad had done several years earlier. Now continuing with the family legacy he makes the step into a sprinter. This got me to thinking about how the lightning sprints / mini sprints have really gained favor as a training ground for tomorrow’s open wheel stars. 2012 promises to be a year that further extends the value of the lightning sprints / mini sprints as a training tool for tomorrow’s stars. Schedules across the country point towards a class that allows its competitors first hand experience in similar equipment at the very same tracks were the big series run—for a fraction of the cost and effort. The Midwest Mini Sprint Association alone has put together a full schedule at several of the midwest’s premier facilities.
Early on I had the pleasure of writing stories about two of our sport’s success stories, Craig Kinser and Brad Sweet. That has been several years ago now and there have been many, many more that have come along since that time. I sat down and tried to list all the local drivers that I have run against that I know have made the transition from lightning sprints, mini sprints to full size sprints or midgets cars. It’s a pretty impressive list – I apologize for those I have left out. Hud Horton, Logan Hupp, Spud Gustin, Jason Soudrette, Nick Bilbee, Beau Stewart, Tom Rhodes, Tim Allison, Lewie Christian, Kirk Jeffries, Jimmy Kite, Brad Kuhn, Shane Cottle and Dane Carter.
As a long time competitor and fan of the mini sprints I am excited about the interest and growth this class is receiving right now. Hopefully young, aspiring drivers continue to find the class as an important stepping stone in their climb up the ladder. Hopefully the class’s fan base discover the class as an opportunity to catch a rising star.
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Viper Pipes offering stainless header sets – We have decided to offer stainless steel header sets for upright mini sprints. To start with our stainless steel headers will be offered as a special order item that will take a few extra weeks to deliver. We hope to have photos posted on our site in the next few weeks. Stay tuned to www.viperpipes.com for more information.
Here is a photo of our stainless collector.
www.viperpipes.com
Karting – A great way to keep the rust knocked off during the winter – This winter my daughter and I have joined an indoor karting league in hopes of adding a little racing excitement to the cold winter months. We joined a 10 week winter league at new facility in Cincinnati, Ohio called Full Throttle Karting. The league has proven to be a blast. We’ve had the chance to race against several road racers, auto-crossers and track day enthusiast. As a guy who has not turned left and right for a very long time, it has been a bit humbling.
The Full Throttle facility just opened in the fall of 2011 and is operated by a group of Sports Car Club of America enthusiasts. It was obvious on my first visit that they had done their homework. Full Throttle Karting is easily one of the nicest karting facilities I have ever visited. It is well thought out in every facet. Drivers sign in using a computer system that expedites the entire process. Drivers are assigned to a heat right at the time they purchase the session. I really liked this since at some of the other karting facilities I have visited you were forced to simply wait in line. At Full Throttle you are provided a heat number and time. As a member you can even call ahead and reserve a time. Waiting is not a big deal though as they have a very nice lobby area with big screen televisions, game and a slot car track.
When its time to go racing, the facility is even more impressive. A neat, clean equipment room is where you get your protective gear, if you didn’t bring your own. This is also where first timers go through a short orientation session. I thought this was a nice touch as everyone wants to get the most out of their session – and waiting around for folks that don’t understand the flags or the general flow of things can easily waste precious time in an eight minute session.
I was most impressed with the track layout. Most of the tracks I have visited have been a lot of fun, but offered very little grip and were not very technical. On my first visit to Full Throttle, I realized that getting around this track required some thought. Concepts like entry, apex, exit, braking zones and an analysis of which corners were most important all required some consideration if you wanted to achieve a reasonable time. It is one of the first indoor kart tracks I have been to where you don’t just keep the loud pedal mashed the whole time—at this track you can actually overdrive the kart and cost yourself on the clock. One of the owners explained to me that they had gone to great pains to design the track – even to the point of doing serious computer simulations with both novice and experienced drivers. I have been told that at this point it is believed that Full Throttle has one of the fastest indoor karting tracks in North America.
After your session you can get a print out detailing every lap of your session and how you stacked up against the competition for your session and the week. This information as well as all of your past sessions can also be accessed via the internet – using the password you created on your first visit.
I have taken several of my friends to Full Throttle and my experience has been that once you run your first session, they’ve got you hooked. For that reason it is nice that they actually offer the opportunity to compete in supervised racing events that give you the opportunity to do more than just turn laps—but to actually race.
The first event that I competed in was an hour long, endurance race. Three driver teams qualify and then race for 1 hour. Each team is required to rotate their three drivers during the event. I teamed with a couple of friends that race lightning sprints and we had a blast. At the end of the event we missed winning by 17 seconds. Which ended up being the cost of some really slow driver changes—its no fun being old.
The leagues have also been fun. While they run leagues several nights during the week, we are in one that competes on Saturday mornings. I run in the adult league and my daughter runs in the youth league. The format is pretty simple. They start with a short driver’s meeting and followed by an eight lap qualifying session. The twenty five lap feature is started straight up based upon qualifying times. As noted earlier I have been really surprised at the level of competition. There is a very small gap separating the entire field each week. You would be shocked at just how much energy it takes. I know that part of it is my forty something body, but even some of the younger guys have said they are thoroughly spent at the end of the session. I’ve joked with a few of them that it is probably one of the best deals in racing right now. For a very small investment in time and money I can go have fun racing equipment that I don’t have to do maintenance on and be back home by noon. Be sure to check it out at http://www.cincykarting.com
Here is some video from a few weeks ago. Not the greatest quality, but I think it will give you a pretty good idea of the track layout.
Be sure to LIKE our FaceBook Fan Page. Everyone who likes are page is automatically in the running for one of our monthly give-aways. Congratulations to November winner Stephanie Davis Lovell. Stephanie won a pair of Shox Skinz shock covers. CLICK HERE to visit our FACEBOOK PAGE.
I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas.
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