Why are there two engine choices for 1/4 midgets?

You may have wondered why...
We have two different engine types in our sport.
Not a bad question…

At the start of quarter midget racing as we know it (with the engine behind the driver) there were several types of engines being used. The engine we now call the Deco was first known as the Continental, and it was settled upon, because it was very durable, and very cheap. It was widely available, new in a box, in the fifties, army surplus, for $35.00 each, U.S., if you bought ten at a time. This engine was the backbone of the sport from the early nineteen fifties, up until the last few years, which has become the era of the Honda.

The upper classes still reflect an interest in the Deco, but the combination of absurd prices charged by the pro engine builders, and less and less interest on the part of the handler to build his own engines, have created the current mix. The Honda (which I have never been particularly fond of) is simply a more cost effective way to go racing. Don’t get me wrong, the engine builders still have their hand in your pocket with “back door” racing prepared engines, but at least the price is only three to five times the price of a TRUE stock Honda, instead of several thousand dollars U.S. for a pro-built Deco.

One way to get more track time for your driver is to have two cars per driver, with a Honda in one, and a Deco in the other. If you expect to keep up with the pro-built motors, though, you may be kidding yourself. Only when any Deco motor can be claimed for about twice the price of claiming a Honda, will the future of the Deco be protected. Every handler that has a bunch of time or money “invested” in his Deco will fight this idea tooth and nail. He may also end up with a bunch of Deco parts and motors, like I have, which have very little chance of turning a future lap on a quarter midget track.

The people, who run our sport, at the international level, have done all they can to protect the interests of every one involved. For many years, a driver was not allowed to have more than two cars entered during any single race day. At that time, both cars would have been Deco powered, and run in different classes, say, Stock, and Modified. Now, perhaps because we have two different Honda classes to enter, a driver is allowed to run in THREE classes, which would put another Deco back on the track. The Honda has often been required to run a restrictor plate, to “make the class safer”. The same restrictor plate also keeps the big dollar Deco from being quite as embarrassed by the Honda, which can often run the same lap times, at 10% of the cost!

For many years, the handlers in our sport wanted a “cam checker”. A tool, to help to determine if a given cam had been worked on (which would put it outside the rulebook.) The go-kart boys had a similar problem with their Briggs 4/cycle engines, and solved it by the use of a degree wheel and dial indicator system. QMA should have followed their lead, but instead, they issued a pair of silly little metal plates, to use during engine teardowns, to pass or fail the cams. That was simple mindedness, as for many years, Ford Flathead builders had hopped-up their engines by “taking a little off the cam…” A cam could now be designed which would have no problem going through the little test plate, but would not resemble in the slightest the cam timing which came from the cam that was truly stock.

The Deco cam we now have, and call the #2 “stock” cam, is more like a blend of a Briggs cam in the overlap department, and a Honda motorcycle cam in the lobe profile department. Letting this cam loose in the sport, caused the vertical take-off in Deco prices, and the need for a low cost level engine to inter the sport with. Once again, QMA was asleep; because the Honda did not simply provide entry to the sport it BECAME the sport, as the Deco had been before…

So there, in a nutshell, is the reason we have more than one engine in quarter midget racing. The more things change, the more they remain the same. We now have hair splitting concerning tiny details on the Honda engine, just the same as we did when the Deco was truly stock. The best we can hope for is to keep the Honda rulebook frozen for as long as the engine is in production, with only microscopic changes to reflect production changes. Take the lid off the rulebook, and guys like Hawkins will start the cycle over once again, like he did last time!!

Remember, the best time to prepare your chassis is during the long quiet wintertime, not at the last minute when race day is only ten days away!!

Darryl Clarke

Editors Note: The author of this article, Darryl Clarke, was a quarter midget driver in the fifties, and a dragster driver in the sixties in a front engine Chrysler powered rail. He then became a sports car racer in the seventies. l980 was his son's first year as a quarter midget driver, which brought him back to his first love. He helped build a track in Langley, British Columbia, Canada. In l995, he came out of retirement yet again, and restored a Stanley quarter midget (1979 vintage) which had been driven, when new, by Mike Bliss. During the next four years, the old car was class champion twice, and runner up twice. He stays actively involved in the sport, having been presented with a life-time membership in 1999 by his home club, the Langley Quarter Midget Assn. (part of Region Nine).