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 sequence begins, 10 wins, 40 high fives, 87 high 10s and three quick qualifying occasions relationship again to his 1999 USAC Nationwide Midget debut.
One 12 months in the past, Meseraull was a part-time competitor with the sequence, making 9 begins with a finest run of second at Kansas’ Belleville Brief Observe.
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 acknowledged. “With the scale of the vehicles, we race on these tracks which might be sufficiently big for full dimension vehicles, dash automobile, inventory vehicles, no matter. Midgets are half the automobile. So, you may have twice the quantity of room on the racetrack. It’s elbows up and it’s nearly 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 based mostly staff proprietor and engine builder who entered the world of midget racing with a brand new platform, the EA Stealth Ford, which has been below the hood of the staff’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 way of,” Meseraull detailed. “However the motor and the concept sat there for one more 12 months or two. Then, Tim simply determined he needed to take it on. There are simply not lots of midget motors obtainable, so this was a option to carry 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 take a look at and in addition discover success.
“The motor is wonderful,” Meseraull exclaimed. “Tim has really bought a handful of them, so now we’re going to the race observe and we’ve 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 staff 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 ultimate 12 months with RMS Racing in 2023, successful a BC39 preliminary evening characteristic at The Grime Observe at Indianapolis Motor Speedway that September.
T-Mez went on to elucidate that the engine is a model of an previous pushrod Gaerte, however up to date within the new age and contains a NASCAR cylinder head. By November 2023, Engler’s new staff 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 the easiest way to get outcomes for him was to maintain doing it. So, he determined to construct a staff for me to go proceed to race. I’m very excited this 12 months to go USAC racing and we really feel like we’ve our greatest piece. It’s taken years to construct it after simply studying the place we have been missing and the place we are able to get higher. It’s come a good distance within the final 12 months.
“I’m actually pleased with Tim and all the things he’s accomplished. We constructed a midget motor to compete with Toyota, and that’s a giant feat. We’re shut. We’re so shut.”
