Midget car racing

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This article is about full-size midget race cars. For the smaller version youth racer, see Quarter-midget. For the brand name automobile, see King Midget.

Midget cars are very small race cars with a very high power-to-weight ratio and typically using four-cylinder engines. Despite the name, they are fully capable of being driven by average-sized drivers. They are intended to be driven for races of relatively short distances, typically 2.5 to 25 miles (4 to 40 km), often staged inside arenas, most notably the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals held in early January at the Tulsa Expo Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. These sorts of events are sometimes held on weeknights so that popular and famous drivers from other, higher-profiled types of motor racing will be available to compete. Many famous drivers have driven in these cars, including Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon and others. The high power and small size of the cars combine to make midget racing quite dangerous; for this reason modern midget cars are fully equipped with roll cages and other safety features.

In 1959 Lime Rock Park held a famous Formula Libre race, where Rodger Ward shocked the expensive and exotic sports cars by beating them on the road course in an Offenhauser powered midget car, usually used on oval tracks. But Ward used an advantageous power-to-weight ratio and dirt-track cornering abilities to steal the win.