About QMRacingInfo
About QMRacingInfo.com
QMRacingInfo.com was started in 2018 as a personal project of Bill Messmer intended to be a one stop shop for finding out information about quarter midget racing and preserving some continuity among quarter midget clubs. It started with the intent of making it easier to find quarter midget clubs and their racing schedules.
About Bill
Hello! My name is Bill Messmer. I'm a software engineer who has worked in the industry for the last 20+ years on low level software. Throughout my career, I've worked on device drivers, operating systems, runtimes, API libraries, compilers, and debuggers.
In the Spring of 2010, my wife saw an e-mail from someone where we both worked regarding a community event for kids 5-16: a quarter midget ride day at the WQMA club in Monroe, WA. Neither my wife nor I had ever heard of quarter midget racing. But every time we had gone to an amusement park, my son -- who was 5 years old at the time -- wanted to do rides involving cars. We thought that taking him to ride day and letting him try out a quarter midget would simply be a fun afternoon activity. So, on May 8th, 2010, we drove out to the WQMA club in Monroe, WA. In those days, the WQMA club did only one ride day per year. It was an enormous event where hundreds of kids would show up and there were tons of other activities while the kids waited for their turn to go out on the track. So, we signed the waivers, got our number -- 139 if I remember correctly --, and waited. It was a few hours of doing other activities -- looking at other race cars, playing in the bouncy house, hanging out on the club playground, etc... -- before he got his turn. He got his 10 laps and came off the track. The first thing he said (super excited, I might add) was, "Can I go again!?"
Since it was a several hour wait, we told him that, unfortunately, he would not be able to drive again that day; so we went home. After that day, it was non-stop talking about quarter midgets! "Can we race quarter midgets!?" "Can you buy me a quarter midget!?" I wasn't a mechanically inclined person and I knew zero about race cars. My gut reaction was that putting five year old kids in gasoline powered race cars was insane. But my son kept asking... So we decided to go out to the club again on a regular race day and just talk to some folks. I spoke with the club's VP and he introduced me to another club member who had some time to answer my questions. Being that I wasn't "into cars" and I didn't know how long my son's interest in this would last, I was seriously concerned about the cost of getting involved in the sport and buying a car. I talked to that club member... He answered a lot of questions for me... and he said that he knew some people selling used gear and someone who might be willing to let me use a car for a while to try it out. He walked me over to a family who was selling a 74" original GT American made in 2000. After listening to my story and concerns, that family told me that for $250, they'd let me use their car throughout WQMA's novice training and practice. If I decided to buy it afterwards, the $250 would simply go towards their asking price; otherwise, I was only out $250. I agreed and thus began my entry into quarter midget racing. After settling details about the car, we went around to several other families and bought used racing gear: a used race suit, gloves, etc... The only thing I bought new was a helmet.
