Midget Racing at Rob's Redline Raceway on Mondays?

Here's something for y'all to consider; Rob is considering these for a Monday Racing class at Redline Raceway. The kits are sold by Mid America Products. The kits contain all the parts needed to fully assemble a running car. The motors in the kit are Mid America's FK motor rated at 25K. The kits are very nice! The body and driver figure are very nicely molded. The kit includes all the chrome detail parts the original 1960s kit came with.

My curiosity got the better of me, so I completed a quick assembly of one of the kit cars for a short test session. To be honest I was not expecting much. The chassis went together easily, the only "tweaking" mine required was a little grinding on the grub screw for the crown gear (it hit the motor's pinion gear). Pretty minor stuff, and it may of just been my kit (the pinion could have been pressed further onto the motor).

After assembling the chassis, I taped the incomplete body onto the completed chassis and headed over to the track. I hit the throttle and off it went, backwards. I have had the best luck running FK motors wired in reverse, so I swapped the crown gear to the other side of the chassis to get the car to go in the correct direction.

I was actually surprised by the car's performance! I've had a lot of experience racing Womp class cars, and this little guy had similar characteristics. Cornering speeds were not as high as those with Womps, but hey, this thing is narrow with a 10 gram body (without any of the chrome detail parts). So my next thought was; how much worse will the handling be with the 4 gram driver figure sitting way up on top of this body? I taped the driver figure in place on top of the midget body. To my surprise I could not detect any difference in handling.

The handling of this car right out of the box really surprised me! I would have bet money it would not handle this well! Especially when you consider in box stock configuration; the front wheels do not rotate independently, and there is not added weight/ballast for tuning. The car also has foam tires all the way around that are pretty grippy! At this point I don't know exactly what Rob has in mind for this class as far as any allowable modifications or changes. I would be fine racing these things "box stock" with no modifications!

Bottom line for me is; these midgets look really cool and they are actually fun to run! They are challenging to get around the track at a fast pace, but that is part of their appeal to me. Now I need to paint this thing!