When Mike Fedorcak debuted his famed Munchkin midget in August 1987, the car was fast right out of the box – real fast in fact.
Several years ago, Fedorcak shared the following with the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel: “On the track we do hot laps, and they give the green flag and I start racing. I’m going by these guys and I’m thinking, ‘Didn’t they see the green flag?’ It was like they were under caution, that’s how fast the car was.”
After winning that night’s UMARA midget feature at Grundy County Speedway in Illinois, Fedorcak was told to never come back with the car. It was just as well, because he built it for competing at one track – the fifth-mile Indianapolis Speedrome.
Nearly two years earlier, a chain of events led to Fedorcak building the first Munchkin.
After winning the World Wide Auto Racing midget feature at Toledo (Ohio) Speedway on Sept. 2, 1985, Fedorcak strapped into friend Tom Brewer’s supermodified to do double duty.
Following contact with another car, Fedorcak’s supermodified slammed the wall and its fuel tank exploded while pinned against the wall by another car. He received third-degree burns to his legs and hands.
“The cars I was passing on the outside got together,” Fedorcak remembered. “They came over about a half a lane right at the end of the straightaway. I hooked wheels and hit the wall on the fly. The car pretty much just exploded. The fire crew arrived and parked in the fire. The fire was running down the track with the oil and fuel. They literally parked right in the fire. It was kind of strange. It took them a while to get me out.
“I was in the hospital for the next three months. I won the WWAR championship from my hospital bed,” Fedorcak said with a laugh. “I had such a huge points lead that I didn’t race the last three or four races and still won the championship.”
The original Munchkin was the result of excessive downtime and plenty of mental brainstorming while recuperating from his burns.
“I was on my way down to Louisville from Fort Wayne to get my hands worked on from the supermodified crash on Thanksgiving in 1986,” Fedorcak recalled. “I was driving by the exit for the Indianapolis Speedrome. It had been a track very difficult for me. I wanted to build something I could race with weekly at the Indianapolis Speedrome.
“I knew I was going to be laid up for a while with my hands in stitches,” Fedorcak added. “I started putting some ideas in my head between Indianapolis and Louisville. By the time I got down there, I pretty much had an idea in mind for this car. I implemented everything I had been thinking about, and low and behold, here comes the Munchkin.”
Fedorcak named the car based on a conversation with a waitress in Chicago several years earlier. Fedorcak explained he was competing in an auto race at the Rosemont Horizon, at which point the waitress referred to midgets as “Munchkins.”
But why was Fedorcak interested in building a car that might only be competitive at a single track?
“To win a feature event at the Indianapolis Speedrome,” he responded quickly. “At the time, it was a big deal to me.”
One week after his Grundy County victory, Fedorcak debuted the car at the Indianapolis Speedrome. The stage was big as the event was being telecast live on ESPN as part of “Thursday Night Thunder.”
Starting fifth, Fedorcak won the night’s 50-lap feature, nearly lapping the field. He and the Munchkin won again at the Speedrome on Sept. 18.
At the conclusion of the 1987 season, the Indianapolis Speedrome discontinued weekly midget racing. It was just as well, though, as Fedorcak had achieved his goal.
The car was 125 pounds lighter than other midgets and radically different. It certainly garnered a lot of interest, particularly from USAC officials. According to Fedorcak, seven rules were added to the USAC rulebook after the 1987 season aimed at taking away the Munchkin’s advantage.
Fedorcak tested the Munchkin at the .686-mile Indianapolis Raceway Park oval prior to the 1989 season.
“We tested at IRP with the original version of the Munchkin and it was scary,” Fedorcak said. “I went back to the drawing board and made a car that was six inches longer and eventually got the track record at IRP with the longer wheelbase car.”
The newly designed car carried Fedorcak to three USAC National Midget Series victories in 1989 and over the next three seasons Fedorcak earned rides in midgets owned by Steve Lewis, Rollie Helmling and Ralph Potter.
The success of the Munchkin also caught the attention or midget racers in New Zealand.
“I went down there to New Zealand and raced three years in a row,” Fedorcak said. “The first year, I was part of the USA team. The team thing was pretty cool because I got paid for everything. I got paid to race, my trip over paid, my motel paid, everything was all paid. It was a goal of mine since I started racing … to get invited there because Sleepy Tripp was one of my heroes and he always raced there.
“I really liked Western Springs Speedway. It never dried out. I always went through a record number of tear-offs. I’d use three tear-offs a lap in hot laps. I’d just get plastered with dirt. It was a freaking blast. I love that place.”
After winning the 1991 Night Before the 500 midget racing while driving for Lewis, Fedorcak felt his career had peaked. His dislike for Winchester (Ind.) Speedway and its vaunted high banks kept him from landing a full-time ride with a top team.
“I think if I would have been willing to race Winchester, I could have landed the Steve Lewis ride full time,” Fedorcak said. “There were a lot of races there. If you were going for a championship, you had to run there. I made it known to people I wasn’t interested in racing there. They didn’t come out and say it. Ralph Potter and Steve Lewis were going for championships and I wasn’t a championship driver. I didn’t get the ride.
“After parting ways with Ralph Potter in 1992, I really didn’t get the good rides any longer,” Fedorcak continued. “I would just take rides, that were just rides. I just really didn’t get any good rides after that. I raced just to keep racing.
“My daughter Emma was born in 1994,” Fedorcak noted. “I was offered a ride at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1995 by first Kent Baker and then Ron Hemelgarn. I had to bring money. At that time, it was about $120,000. I couldn’t find anybody to invest in me. I could’ve used my life savings, but I didn’t feel it was worth it. I couldn’t see where it would turn my career around or anything.”
Then, one event changed everything.
“In 1996, I made friends with Perry Younce. About a month later, Perry was killed at Springport Speedway and I was supposed to race the next day,” Fedorcak said. “I looked at my driver’s suit and said, ‘I can’t do this no more’ – and I quit. I got out of racing entirely. My daughter was 18 months old and I thought she needed a dad and I got out of racing entirely. I didn’t follow it or go to any races after that. I was happy raising her.”
But eventually, the racing bug bit back.
“About 2005 I drug the Munchkin back out and started racing the indoor shows in Fort Wayne,” Fedorcak recalled. “A few years later, I got a call from Don Skinner saying Tony Stewart wanted to drive my car at Fort Wayne. I couldn’t sell it because nobody showed interest. I had been trying to sell it for a while. I knew he was serious because about a week before the race 10 new Hoosier tires showed up to my shop.
“I had never talked to Tony, only Don. Stewart ended up winning that year and he drove it again two years later and won again,” Fedorcak said. “I ended up selling the car to Tony.”
At 68 years old, Fedorcak shows no signs of easing off the throttle. In addition to the annual Fort Wayne indoor midget events driving for Stewart, he competes in dirt micro sprint events at numerous Indiana race tracks.
He also intends to restore the original Munchkin – with plans to show it, not race it.
“I just really love to race and like being around it,” Fed
This story appeared in the Feb. 22, 2023 edition of the SPEED SPORT Insider.
