About the Cars

 

The N.S.W Quarter Midgets are designed to be a fun, Cheap entry level speedway class for competitors aged 16 or older, The cars are powered by a water cooled 125 cc PRD Fireball or Rotax Branded engines, and the chassis is a purpose built. tubular frame, utilising many Go kart components including brakes, axles, wheels etc.

 

History of Quarter Midgets in NSW

 

Quarter midget racing was first introduced to Australia as an idea by Kevin Wheeler in Western Australia In the early 90's.

Dave Hogan was the first to introduce Quarter midgets to NSW And this is Dave's story on the start of the class in this state.

 

Initially I was given a picture of these little cars, given to me by one of my friends who built formula 500s. Subsequently contact was made with Kevin Wheeler in WA who I found to be the originator, and he sent me a set of rules and specifications. Eventually it was decided to have a go at making one. This was the easy part About this time 1995 I was a prison overseer in charge of the welding shop in a minimum security prison.

One of the inmates was a fibre glasser and another was an outstanding fabricator and all were really keen The governor of the Jail thought it would be good for prisoner rehabilitation, among other things, and gave his permission to make it as long as I paid for the car and it did not interfere with the work for our customers. It was something that had never been done in a jail and as a result generated a lot of interest.

Figuring how to bend up the tube using a normal pipe bender , it is easy enough when one knows what formers to use , how to make the jigs and so on took awhile but eventually I had one to take to the track. After a considerable amount of trial and error the car was made to handle in the configuration they are now During this stage of development the people a Cullen Bullen speedway were really helpful, allowing me to go out between races to test starting me with their push car and always encouraging me to keep on with it. One of my expressions in the jail when I was talking to the inmates was to call them gangsters . This spilt over to the car which became known as the gangster complete with a Gangster logo. The chassis became known as a Gangster chassis. The car is identical to those of WA with the exception of the wheels and tyres at the time I could not get the rims they were using so I used the Burris tyres on the 6 inch rims with the 100cc yamaha engine . WA use 16 inch turf tyres on made up rims on the rear and 15inch turf tyres on the 6 inch rims on the front Gearing is a problem requiring an auxiliary jackshaft to get the right ratio

The cars with turf tyres are quite spectacular as they slide a lot while with the burris tyres they are not as spectacular but faster One has to really know about setting up the chassis for the turf tyres . In response to orders from people in Bathurst we started to build some cars and had supplied a few when Corrective Services decided these cars were inappropriate to be built in a jail I bought the unfinished cars and finished them at home. Some of the people in Bathurst had cars some lost interest . None of the cars were ever run, By this time I had bought Bensons own car from SA and was asked by Alan Han to give a demonstration at Quamby Dirt track The car I used was the Benson with the big wheels on it but the car he bought was my original car with Burris tyres . John Spranger decided to make them and copied this car and that is how they came to be the shape they are with the Burris tyres. The remaining cars I had in different stages of construction as well as those cars owned by people in Bathurst were bought up by people in Gosford .

The reason for the Rotax was the need for a car that could be easily started and could be out on the track as per the bikes . Initially the Yamahas were set up with clutches By the time this was all done it was nearly the price of a Rotax which had just come out , yet they were unreliable and not as fast . Being easy to start and reliable secured their future at Gosford. The Rotax allowed me to go racing on my own.

Our thanks to Dave Hogan for supplying the early photos and information regarding the formation of the club.

 

 

Allan Hann secured the services of John Spranger to build several cars and worked at trying to drum up enough interested competitors to get a class off the ground .After a lot of hard work his persistence paid off and the first race was held at Gosford in 1998.with a field of six cars running with the Yamaha KT 100 S power plant.

Car numbers built up fairly quickly in the ensuing seasons till the class was boasting fields of up to 26 cars (which on the short Gosford track was known to be pretty spectacular)

In 1999 Allan Hann decided to experiment with the Rotax 125 water cooled engine on his car, which promised many advantages over the KT100S not the least of which was a substantial increase in horsepower and the fact that they had an electric start.

After several races (in which he had to start from the rear of field) it didn't take long before the writing was on the wall for the KT100S .