High Side

Badger Midget Auto Racing Association

December 2, 2019

Most racers will tell you auto racing is a second full time job. 40 hours at a nine to five and another 40 in their race shop. The difference between their day job and their ‘second job’ is that the later often pays little to no financial reward. In fact, it costs them just to do it. Regardless of the size of car or caliber of competition, if you're on the track, you're spending money. And it's the cost of racing that is often blamed for the failure of teams, tracks and organizations.

One racing organization that knows this and took action is 83-year-old Badger Midget Auto Racing Association (BMARA). Based in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin at legendary Angell Park Speedway, BMARA is in a revival after making radical moves to ease the financial cost of midget racing. In 2015, roughly 16 cars were competing when BMARA implemented a production-engine-only rule for 2016. Since then, Badger had car counts triple in just three seasons and hosted a total of 48 cars and 62 drivers during 2018 events. The result of the change has been a 60 percent reduction in engine cost with only 15 percent reduction in horsepower.

Learn more about Badger Midget at bmara.com