SPEEDWAY, Ind. — Thomas Meseraull is locked in for a full season of USAC NOS Power Drink Midget Nationwide Championship racing aboard the Tim Engler owned No. 7x.
Meseraull is among the many most skilled veterans within the lineup with 205 profession collection begins, 10 wins, 40 prime fives, 87 prime 10s and three quick qualifying occasions courting again to his 1999 USAC Nationwide Midget debut.
One 12 months in the past, Meseraull was a part-time competitor with the collection, making 9 begins with a finest run of second at Kansas’ Belleville Quick Monitor.
Regardless of expertise in all kinds of racing equipment from midgets to champ vehicles to sprints vehicles with and with out wings, it’s getting behind the wheel of a midget that will get T-Mez fired up.
“Midget racing might be essentially the most intense racing you’ll be able to go do,” Meseraull said. “With the dimensions of the vehicles, we race on these tracks which are large enough for full measurement vehicles, dash automotive, inventory vehicles, no matter. Midgets are half the automotive. So, you’ve gotten twice the quantity of room on the racetrack. It’s elbows up and it’s pretty much as good because it will get and as thrilling because it will get. That retains it enjoyable for me.”
For the previous two-plus seasons, Meseraull has teamed up with Engler, the Princeton, Indiana primarily based group proprietor and engine builder who entered the world of midget racing with a brand new platform, the EA Stealth Ford, which has been beneath the hood of the group’s vehicles since day one.
“Initially, Chase Briscoe introduced a motor, or an concept of constructing a midget motor, to Tim, and that form of fell by means of,” Meseraull detailed. “However the motor and the thought sat there for one more 12 months or two. Then, Tim simply determined he wished to take it on. There are simply not a number of midget motors accessible, so this was a solution to deliver a brand new motor into the game.”
On the time, Engler’s midget engine was one-of-a-kind. These days, you’ll see different groups with the powerplant put in beneath the body rails of their very own vehicles. However it began with Meseraull being the primary one to place it to the check and likewise discover success.
“The motor is wonderful,” Meseraull exclaimed. “Tim has truly bought a handful of them, so now we’re going to the race observe and now we have different groups which have them, and we’re all form of constructing to make this factor as aggressive as it may be. Tim constructed a midget group for me with Donnie (Gentry) and Chuck (Adams). We’ve constructed two vehicles, then three and now it’s 4. We now have 4 vehicles and 6 motors.”
Meseraull first competed with the engine throughout his closing 12 months with RMS Racing in 2023, successful a BC39 preliminary night time characteristic at The Grime Monitor at Indianapolis Motor Speedway that September.
T-Mez went on to elucidate that the engine is a model of an outdated pushrod Gaerte, however up to date within the new age and includes a NASCAR cylinder head. By November 2023, Engler’s new group debuted and Meseraull was tabbed because the wheelman and has been a combo ever since.
“Tim’s bought some huge cash invested on this motor,” Meseraull revealed. “And one of the simplest ways to get outcomes for him was to maintain doing it. So, he determined to construct a group for me to go proceed to race. I’m very excited this 12 months to go USAC racing and we really feel like now we have our greatest piece. It’s taken years to construct it after simply studying the place we have been missing and the place we will get higher. It’s come a great distance within the final 12 months.
“I’m actually happy with Tim and every part he’s executed. We constructed a midget motor to compete with Toyota, and that’s an enormous feat. We’re shut. We’re so shut.”
