I have mixed feelings about the 1010. I agree that the chassis rule has probably diminished numbers. A lot of people only keep their kids in Mini for a year (dumb, IMO) and don’t want to buy a new chassis for one year. But in Evo form the Mini engine has enough power that I think the 1010 is a lot safer than a cadet. A decent Evo Mini motor has 7 or 8 more hp than a Mini Rok or Mini Swift. It’s also a nice stepping stone from a cadet to a full size. The problem is most chassis manufacturers give very little thought to their 1010 design. We’ve been on a Nordix and it’s…not great. It’s nothing more than a stretched out cadet with ill-fitting body work from a full size chassis. It’s impossible to use workable front hubs that don’t cause the front wheel to jam the side pods in tight turns. We are constantly fighting for rear grip. We are testing a prototype chassis and hope to get a more tunable chassis.

In our region Mini has always been a stepchild class, but last year was actually the best numbers wise we’ve been in a while. Rotax nationals had more Minis than Micros, which never happens. In our region we see a lot of people move their kid up to Junior too early. That’s another reason you see small Mini fields, but big Junior fields with 2/3 of the kids 1.5 seconds off the pace.

You both have made really good points about the class.  I think this transition to 1010s will take a few years to sort out.  It is my understanding this move was in part to align with Europe standards.

Moving the kiddos up to Junior when they turn 12 sounds like a good idea at the club level and can work out if there are not a lot of established juniors but it ultimately hurts the regional and national level series.

There are also kids going into Tag Junior at 12 and getting out of Rotax.

What is the weight for a minimax with a 1040 chassis. I am sitting at 310 with my 12 year old and no weight on the kart.

Thank you

Hi Tom, the min weight for Mini is 290 lbs. whether you are on a 1010 or a 1040.

Jeff, the rule was made to conform with Canada. In Europe they still run Mini on 950’s. I thought the cadet chassis looked way overpowered when I watched the Mini classes at Rotax Worlds this year. There were a number of bad flips in Mini.

In some Canadian series they run Micros and Minis on Vega Blues (which I’ve always found strange), which have a TON of grip. I wonder if the 1010 rule has anything to do with that. An Evo Mini on a cadet chassis shod with Vegas would be bicycling around every corner.

Aaron,

Mini on 1010 or 950 has always been a stepchild class.  Numbers have never been good.   The best at COA was about 19 and the 2014 shootout was only about 22 and that was a bigger turnout than grand nationals.  Locally it has been small damn near everywhere.

I think its a great class, yes numbers are not that high but its caliber drivers, i don’t care to have huge field only to have a big field, big kids on the 950 usualy don’t do as good as small kids, many kids that stay in 950 way too long struggle when they go to full size, this is perfect transition imo.

A couple of things, we run the series in sonoma one year as a micro and now this year as a mini and in the past ran a comer on our cadet. Now that we are 11  years old the fit on the 1010 is much nicer than staying on a cadet. As a micro we are over weight and my kid is thin as a rail, he is just tall so at the end of our micro season we were at 250+ and if the 1010 wasn’t introduced we would be 10+ heavier this year. With the bigger chassie and more power to go with it I’m very happy as a parent. Way more stable. My 2 cents

low turn out could be the fact that it’s way way way to pricey to enter some of these series