Meanwhile, Joe Loven of Kingsport, Tennessee had also started to make a mark in minicup racing. He owned a successful concrete business and had both the time and money to invest in building minicups in his area. Joe built his own cars but looked to Tom Roche for those great looking fiberglass bodies. He built a racing series which competed at a racetrack he built but never named. Racers called it the Kingsport miniway and Tennessee became a hotbed of minicup racing. Joe had a good thing going but wanted minicups to spread beyond the borders of Tennessee. Like Tom, he knew Daytona during Speedweeks was the place to promote the cars. He knew the promoter at the famous Volusia County Speedway and convinced him to promote a minicup championship race for minicup racers from all over the country. There was a big purse posted and over 40 racers followed it to Florida. The minicups were a hit but the cars were not at all uniform. Around the country there were pockets of similar cars running where guys like Joe and Tom were making things happen but each had their own rules and systems in place. In NASCAR history, this is when Big Bill France stepped in and forged NASCAR so everyone would have a common rulebook and sanctioning body. Minicups needed this strong leadership and someone with deep pockets to move to the next level.

It almost happened.

Bob Jewell first learned about minicups in early 1994 from a friend who saw them in Daytona. He owned a successful tool company in Bettendorf, Iowa and had been looking for a safe alternative to go-karts for his son. He liked what he saw and by October he became the Midwest distributor for the rigid mini cups built by Tom Roche. After driving the rigid cars at Volusia during Speedweeks in 1995 Bob encouraged Tom to start building a suspended chassis minicup which would be more likely to succeed nationally. Tom teamed up with some engineers including Arvis Zimbleman to design the new chassis which became the Super Minicup we know today. As part of that new design, Arvis was also able to persuade McCreary tire to design and build a racing tire just for minicups. This new minicup was truly a ½ scale stock car and several generations removed from those old rigid go-karts of Hickory.

Bob Jewell was enthusiastic about minicups and by the end of 1995 he had acquired the assets of Tom’s minicup car building business. Over the next couple of years, he brought on several staff members to promote minicup racing including Kirk Miles, John Seneff, Tom Trace, and Andy Brown. As 1996 dawned, the Miniature Motorsports Racing Association (MMRA) was unveiled with much fanfare and the future looked bright. The MMRA would be a national sanctioning body that would oversee rules and regulations for minicups. In an effort to keep competition as close as possible, the MMRA would also allow only one type of car to compete. That car would be manufactured by MMI – another one of Bob Jewell’s companies. The MMI car would be the new suspended chassis car designed in 1995.

While the MMRA was great for the sport, it also left all the old minicups out in the cold. These racers either had to buy a new suspended car which cost in excess of $7500 or run wherever they could find a willing track owner. Instead of building on the past, the new MMRA would be starting from scratch. Nonetheless,  MMRA was still able to rack up several accomplishments including national publicity in Stock Car Racing magazine and television coverage on ESPN2. In 1998, the MMRA sanctioned over 500 events and the "Future Stars" series for kids was carried on Speedvision with new MMRA spokesman, Tony Stewart calling the races. Behind the scenes however, Bob Jewell continued to invest a tremendous amount of his money to subsidize the MMRA. Although the price of the cars continued to increase, the business just wasn’t making money.

In 1999, Bob finally decided he couldn’t continue to underwrite the MMRA and a re-organization was announced. At a dealers meeting in Kansas City, plans were made to consolidate all minicup operations at a new facility in Bettendorf, Iowa. Amid the confusion, Billy Waits and Mark Cohea from Atlanta, Georgia decided to form a new sanctioning body – the Scale Racing League. The SRL would promote races where both rigid and suspended minicups could run together under uniform rules. In addition to forming the SRL, Billy and Mark also decided to start building their own minicup cars. Their first chassis, the Avenger 2000 debuted at the end of 1999. 

Just as Bob Jewell had experienced however, Billy and Mark found the sport wasn't growing fast enough to create big demand for their new Avenger car.  Also, there was significant public bickering between racers loyal to MMRA vs. racers loyal to the SRL.  Just as was the case with the CART/IRL split - this public bickering hurt both organizations and kept the sport from growing.

By the end of 2001, almost everything had fallen apart.  MMRA announced it would cease to exist, and Bob Jewell's MMI  minicup manufacturing business was transferred to Townsend Racing Products.  Over on the SRL side, Billy and Mark transferred their SRL operations to Ken Stabley and Bo Elswick and their Avenger manufacturing business to Ultimate Motorsports.  This was clearly the low point of minicup racing.  The local groups that were still racing were pretty much on their own and most were dying out.  None of the manufacturers or sanctioning bodies was making any money and it was hard to find anyone willing to invest anything in the sport.

Click here to go to page 4 of Minicup Racing History.