Byrne/George Taylor Family Racing History -- 1948 to 1963

[Mark75H]

This 4 piece type plug was common in the 1920's thru early 1950's - its the way plugs were made before the modern crimp together or molded in insulator plugs came out.

The flush end with the side wire ground gap was common for racing applications. They came in a number of thread reaches and both 14 and 18 mm sizes and several heat ranges. This kind of plug would have been used in 4-60's etc. Motors as late as the early Konigs used 18 mm thread plugs with the side wire ground and the first plugs recommended for 20H's and 55H's were this type too.

[ezryder]

This plug (and three others I have) are spares that my Dad had
for his Johnson PR race motors.
The more common plug used in the PR was the R-1
The R-11 was one heat range colder than the R-1. Fact it was the coldest racing plug Champion made.

The replacements for these plugs were the K series. They were the same heat range, but could not be dis assembled.
K58R = R-1
K55R = R-11

The K58R was the plug recommended for the early Champion Hot Rod's.

Ron:
I can't be sure of this but I think after the war Champion did not make any more take apart plugs.
I remember my Dad having lots of R-1 plugs that were take apart and also crimped.
Apparently Champion had lots of race plugs left from before the war.
But the war stopped most racing, so they put the left overs back on the market after the war.
Although I'm not sure, I think the K racing series that replaced the R series, came along in 1950 or 51

The fact that the plug came apart had nothing to do with heat range.
My guess is that they were made that way prior to engineers figuring out some way to crimp them without cracking the porcelain.

I still have my old Champion gap tool for setting the gap on those internally grounded plugs. Without the tool you couldn't do it.

As a side note my first Yamaha GP race bikes were still using internal
ground pins into the 70's. Most common race plug was the E54R.
A 14mm long reach plug.

Ah, the good old days! I never paid for a Champion racing plug in my
life. They gave them to us. They attended all the national races in the
seventies.

Then things started changing and "exotic" became the buzzword. Platinum -- Chromium -- most likely even "cryptionite", although I never had one of those! hehe

My last modern GP roadracer was a Honda RS 250R, 2000 model.
It was "state of the art", and so were the plugs.
They were custom made for Honda by NGK. They were stamped
NGKRS10.5. And they cost $55 bucks each -- and that's if you got
the discount. Retail was 95 bucks!!
Geo

[ezryder]

Upps, Sorry!
I should have said "Sam", not Ron
CRAFT disease, ya know. hehe

[ezryder]

Hi Everyone,
I just received an e mail from Dave Haman with a great picture attached.
I'm posting it here, along with his and my comments as I think it will be
of interest to the BRF members.

Hi George,
Hope all is well with you today.
Attached is a photo for you. Recognize any of these guys? Were some of them friends and competitors from the "Good ol' Days"?

Dave

Oh MY Dave!
That's a way cool photo for my memorabilia! Thanks!
Did I know any of them?
Na, they were all strangers to me! :-D

Those guys were my idols -- And I was just a "jerky kid" to them!
But at least I was already good enough that they would at least
talk to me. Lots of "mind" games went on.
They always let me know they were gonna "kick my ***" come race time.
And they did! For a while.
Then I got more determined than ever -- and the next thing you know, they weren't even talking to me before the race. They had figured out that I was not very attentive to their comments.

Hey, when your 16 and you don't "give a damn", all the mind game **** just goes out the window!

Fantastic memory's for me!!!

From left to right:

Bill Tenney
Jack Maypole
Millford Harreson
Harry Vaught
Homer Kincaid
Clement Landis
Clyde Brickner
Frank Vincent

These are all guys I knew and raced against. \

I probably knew Bill Tenney the best. We spend an evening together in Bill's motel room after dinner,drinking rum and talking "BS" til two in the morning at a Citrus Circuit race in Sarasota. I believe the year was
1956.
I beat his *** the next day cuz I was younger and "bounced back" from my "hang over" quicker than he did the next day.

Oh MY, I take all these comments back -- never happened! Everyone knows that a sixteen year old can't legally drink! - Don't they???

AH, those were the GOOD OLD DAYS!

Regards,
George

[Gene East]

Great picture, some of the best ever are shown here. Without being prejudiced against anyone, Clem and Homer are 2 of my favorites of all tme. I liked Millie too. He just put the thottle on the wrong side of the boat!

[ezryder]

More adventures from my "misspent youth"!!

12/13/10
I was going through all the pictures in the Harrison CD that James Gardner sent me a while back.
The first time I went through these pictures I spotted it – and was pretty sure it was Chris Erneston’s boat. Now, with a second look, I’m positive it is!

He was one of the top guys in AU and BU back in the early 50’s in Fla. As I recall, he raced out of the WPB area.
He built the boat himself. And he also built one for Jack Sellers, a racer from Tampa.

I knew Jack quite well and he let me measure up his boat. And I built one for myself. It was FAST. But not so good in windy conditions. That was my fault as I managed to get a bit of a rocker in the last couple of feet of the bottom. So it tended to ride real high!
It worked well with my KG4H, but not so well when I got my Mk20H.
I did a bit of swimming when I tried to run my 20H on it!

I ended up fixing the bottom and sold it to a local racer from my area. He had good luck with it until he made a trip to a race and didn’t tie it down properly on his trailer.
He was following me up to Lake Haar in Georgia for a race. And I remember noticing in my rear view mirror that it seemed to be a bit unstable. Before I could warn him, it did a back flip off the trailer and landed on the road nose first.
It split wide open right down the middle into a couple of pieces and went flying off the road. Luckily it missed the car that was following him.

Of course, there was not chance to repair the boat. Way too many pieces ! We never even found them all!

George

[A/B Speedliner]

Hi George
I love the stories you and Wayne get to tell on this site. I thnk many of us have similar experiences. The picture of the 20H on the 5 F boat is only the second picture I have seen showing the original white fuel lines. They are the same as the ones I used in 1959 putting together our first 20H conversion.
David

[BRIAN HENDRICK]

George; -maybe its elsewhere, but I was expecting to see some pix
of that nice KR you picked up at the meet in Suwannee last month.
We could also continue the discussion of;
'was it the 'Citrus Circuit', or the 'Grapefruit Circuit"
Pic of me, John Schubert and you at Suwannee
-and the Sturgeon warning at the dock
-only in Florida

[ezryder]

Hi Brian,
Sorry about that. Until I saw your post, I just completely forgot to post
some pictures of my NOS KR55.
See the attached pictures.

This is a very special motor to me as my dad had one just like it back in
the early days of his racing. And I drove it also in the early fifties.

My dad bought his KR and a Fillinger Hydro from Doug Creech when
he retired. Actually, my dad bought Doug's entire trailer of racing equipment. Two Neal three pointers and a Fillinger three pointer. Along
with Doug's winning KR, SR and PR racing motors.

This is the first motor like one my dad owned that I have been able to
include in my collection of Mercury motors.

I have already stripped her down to bare bones and begun the restoration process. When I finish up, she is going to look great and
also be a "runner" too!
Lot's of work ahead of me, but it's gonna happen.

And a big THANKS for all the support that Doug Penn is giving me in
getting this great piece of boat racing history back up to speed.

Regards to everyone,
Geo

PS: Oh yea, another note in my ongoing adventure of re captureing my youth.
I just last week bought a "barn fresh" Whizzer Motorbike. I've already named her "Miss Whizzer".
She is a 1948 model Whizzer. She is quite rare as she is one of only around 2000 Whizzers that the factory assembled, and sold, using a Schwinn commissioned frame with them.
A vast majority of the Whizzers sold were motor kits for you to install on your own bike.
I had one of these Whizzers when I was 12 years old.

My plans are to attempt to do a "survivor" rerstoration on her. This means that you can't paint or re chrome anything. But you can do
careful detailing.
As you can see from the photos, she is in great shape for a 63 year old bike that has not been touched.
She is totally amazing to me. She has great compression and I'm sure that as soon as I install a new capacitor in the ignition, she will fire right up and run fine.
There are a few missing items, but not much. And I've already found all the parts necessary to have her back on the road.

Ah, YES! Retirement is "Way Kool"

[ezryder]

Hi Brian,
I forgot to add this note to my above reply to you.
Yes, you and John are correct!
It was the "Grapefruit Circuit".
My "CRAFT" disease finally "kicked out" briefly!!
But don't count on it being like that for very long!
Geo