Micro Stock racing on the rise

When Legends Cars first came about in 1993, they hit the country by storm as this new scaled down race car, which was a copy of the early Modified stock cars, had a huge fan appeal and was dubbed affordable and was basically a get in and go deal.Soon after others began to look to the downsized fabrication of the bigger counterparts and today there are Legends, Slingshots, 600cc Modifieds, Stage 1 Modifieds and the list goes on.

However, the original concept of scaled race cars was the brainchild of Bob Wagner, Sr., of Wharton, NJ with his creation of the Micro Stock.The first car built had its debut in 1977 at the defunct Pine Brook Speedway in New Jersey which was a 1/10-mile paved oval that hosted weekly TQ Midgets. Wagner felt there was room to add a class to the card but what type of car was the question due to the size of the track.

That's when he got the idea to put a body overtop of a go-kart chassis which had a full roll cage. He decided to go with a fiberglass Modified body. The engine was a 5 horsepower Briggs and Stratton."We call him the Godfather of Micro Stocks," said his son, Bob Wagner, Jr. "The First one was just a go-kart. He made the body first then he made a chassis to fit the body. It was just like a regular 1937 Ford only scaled down.