35 days had gone by since I decided to do this build. With a lot of help from my friend Sam and my dad, this thing was up and running in time to take it to the Wells Fun Run in Wells, Nevada. But, it still needed a few things. It needed a proper seat, a charging port, and my wagon needed a hitch to tow it with.
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Four cables looping back and forth from the throttle assembly to the resistor pack.This crazy idea of mine was about to come to life. The midget only needed wiring to be fully functional car. (Car? Toy? I don’t know, or care.) So, off we set, plying our electrical skills.
Click it for more fun with electrons. … Continue Reading
The next item on the to-do list for the midget was brakes. We could roll and steer, now we needed to stop. ’40s midgets did not use a brake pedal. Instead, they had a lever on the outside of the vehicle which was actuated by hand. The lever actuated the rear-only brakes. Midgets were drift cars long before drift cars were a trend.
An example of a period midget brake lever can be seen in the above photo with a white knob. That is my grandfather, Dale Ith in the 108 car. This photo was taken at a now defunct racetrack in Salt Lake City called the Hippodrome circa 1948.
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Click it for more exciting metal work.
With the front suspension done, all I needed was rear suspension and I’d have a roller. The original midgets of the late ’40s used a transverse leaf spring and either hairpins or split wishbones. The look of the hairpins is such a classic that I decided to try to replicate that look on my midget.
Click through for more hairpins! … Continue Reading
Now that the golf cart was stripped, I had pretty much all the parts I needed to build this thing. Now the task was just to meld together two different sets of parts that really, let’s face it, have no business being together.
Click through to watch the square pegs neatly fitted into round holes.
As I sat in my folding chair at the 2011 Fathers’ Day car show in Wendover, Nevada, I watched several of the other participants buzzing around the parking lot in golf carts, Jazzy scooters, and a motorized cooler. It was then that it hit me. Let’s put a golf cart drivetrain in the midget and take it to car shows!
Why would you merge a 1979 EZ-GO electric golf cart with a late ’30s midget race car?
Why wouldn’t you?
Years ago, when my grandfather moved out of his big, old house, I was able to talk him into letting me drag the old midget race car out of his crawlspace and take it home. Click here for more information about the history of the midget itself.
You may have heard that during the 2012 Daytona 500 Endurnace Race Brad Keselowski did something incredible. He, OMFG, tweeted! That’s great and all, but here is Dick Trickle (possibly the greatest NASCAR name EVER!) taking a cigarette break under caution during the 1990 Talladega race.
[Source: YouTube via my friend's Facebook page]
In keeping with our NASCAR references of the past few days, with the exception of an awesome Weekend Edition, this olelongrooffan thought I would share with my fellow Hoons some of the vintage NASCAR real stock race cars I spotted a whiles back.
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