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

[ezryder]

2010 Daytona Report #2

Hi Everyone!
Here’s my Daytona Update #2.

Saturday 2/27/10

Around 11AM my friends started showing up. First to arrive was my rider’s (Chris Spargo’s) mom and dad showed up.
Shortly thereafter Chris and Glen Christensen showed up
Next Joe Lachniet and Fleta showed up.
Then Marty Lunde arrived.

And the “FUN” began! First off, Joe announced that he thought his crank has gone south in his Yamaha TD1 GP bike.
So we made room for Joe’s bike in the “Hooterville” race shop.
In the meantime I put Chris to work getting my TD3 ready for tech tomorrow. There were a number of “issues” to be resolved, all of which Chris resolved over the next 8 hours.
Meantime Joe was busy disassembling his TD1 to install a new crankshaft. Luck was not with Joe for this years Daytona. After disassembly it was discovered that it was not a crankshaft problem, but rather a gearbox problem. And it was a problem that he did not have the parts to fix.
So Joe’s “Daytona Experience” for this year is over before it began – But for his girlfriend, Fleta, it’s a bonus! Now she can “chase” the Daytona Experience like females like to do – which means NOT being stuck in the paddock for two days while Joe plays with his “boyz toyz”! Fleta’s a “happy camper”!

The day was spend basically enjoying all the “tall tails” that racers tell along with a lot of last minute work. And all “warmed” with plenty of George’s “Texas Chili” for dinner, and of course lot’s ‘o beer and other “stiff” drinks! (Just ask Glen! Hehe).
Then the “BS” began and continued until we all ended up “crashing” around midnight.

A GREAT time was had by all!!!!!!!

Sunday 2/28/10

7AM --- Everyone is “up and at em” --- Kinda! As much as you can be when it’s 32 degrees in Hooterville.
All I heard from my Minnesota and Michigan friends was what is THIS all about. And I told ‘em --- this is the way it’s been ALL winter in Florida.
And believe me, I’m a native of Fla. And this year has had more freezing weather that I’ve ever experienced in my lifetime!

Next we finished loading up everything and off we headed for Tech inspection over in Deland, Fla – not far from the speedway.
On schedule for today was Tech inspection of the race bikes along with rider’s meetings for the following two days of racing.

After these formalities were complete Chris, Glen, and Marty continued to the speedway to unload our bikes and tools in our garage area so that we are set for tomorrow morning.
Chuck and I hit the road to return to Hooterville for the night. I have to be home on
Monday morning to hydrate my kitty cat (Myrtle). She’s 21 years old and requires special medical treatment.

Chuck and I will be heading back to Daytona tomorrow morning at 6am so we will be there for the first practice session. Racing starts after lunch.

That’s about it for now everyone!
I’ll be doing a final Daytona wrap up report next Wednesday. I’ll be spending the night at Daytona tomorrow so that we can all do our yearly “Brick House Grille” dinner get together.
Having LOTS of FUN!
Stay tuned for my wrap up report later in the week.

The “Grey Fox” of Daytona.

[ezryder]

2010 Daytona Wrap Up Report.

Hi everyone,
Huge disaster occurred in my writing up this report a short while ago! Microsoft Word ate my complete report. Apparently “lost forever”. I am one “PO'd" writer about now!
So you will have to be happy with the “shortened” version as I’m not up to doing up another 2 hour plus write up. If I attempted that, most likely my brain would completely “melt down” !!!

So here’s the “short” version:

Monday:
Lots of “drama” went into today. And lots of work to make things happen. The weather for today was COLD but clear.
All sorts of “issues” arose during the morning practice sessions. The worse one was the fact that Chris forgot to take the carburetor covers off my TD3 and attempted to start it.
Two hours later we finally got it started again after draining out over a quart of raw gas out of the crankcases.
Then Chris made the second practice session. But, alas, our problems were not over.
He had to catch a ride back to the pits with the pick up truck when the motor quit.

After a lot of serious troubleshooting, we found that there was a lot of “krap” that ended up in the carburetors caused by the new fiberglass tank we had installed.
Anyway, we went to work and cured those problems just barely in time for the F250 race.
Chris finished second! HALLALULIA! All our work paid off in the end!

Next came the F500 race. Chris was riding Marty’s TR in this race. And things did not turn out like we hoped. Chris pulled in after a few laps complaining that it felt like it was trying to seize up.
Further investigation on our part proved that was not the case. The problem was with the ignition system.

So I made a note to bring along my Motoplat spare ignition to install on Marty’s TR on Tuesday morning. Then Chuck and I headed back to Hooterville for the night.


Tuesday:
Well, the predicted cold front arrived during the night! Lots of rain and really HIGH winds persisted for most of the morning. But as luck would have it, by race time the rain had stopped and all races were done on a dry track. And that’s something we didn’t believe could happen from the info we had received on the weather report on Monday night. The storm was traveling at over 50mph, so it blew over Daytona by around 11am, and the track dried out quickly due to the high winds that persisted all day.

I helped Marty install my spare ignition on his TR while Chris worked on adjusting the shifting drum on my TD. He was not happy with the way it shifted during the race on Monday, so he cured the problem.

Next we tested the new ignition on Marty’s TR and found that it had cured the problem. Great!

Next up was the F250 race and Chris grabbed another 2nd place!
Thanks, Chris!

Then it was F500 time again, with Marty’s TR. Things didn’t work out like we had hoped. Turns out that the ignition change had cured the ignition problem, but created another problem. Now the TR was experiencing detonation, so Chris pulled in rather than destroying the engine. Good choice!

So that was it for this years “Daytona Experience” . And we all had a great time!
Looking forward to next year, God willing!

Regards,
The “Grey Fox of Daytoan” – my 51st year!

[ezryder]

Here are some photos taken during our adventure:

Pix # (17)
Marty's 1965 Ford Window Van. Marty bought this van back when it was new. But never sold it. In later years he shipped it to the UK where he did a total "restore" on it.
Now it's back in the states again. And he used it to transport his vintage Yamaha TR3 to Daytona for the races.
It was a HUGE hit! You would not believe all the people taking pictures of it and asking questions about it!

Pix # (09)
This is a photo of the garage area at Daytona. This picture only covers 20 garage spaces. The total garage spaces available were over a hundred. And they were all full of bikes.
Along with a lot of race bikes that did not pay for garage space and were set up in the paddock area.
Total entries for the races were 400 bikes.

Pix # 4982b
Yours truly sitting on Marty's restored TR3 along with his 1965 Ford Window Van mentioned above.

Pix # 4988b
Left to right -- Chris Spargo ( our rider). Ron (a friend from the UK). Marty Lunde (my racing friend from when I started racing in 72). And Glen Christensen ( A fellow vintage racer I've know for years)

Next I'm going to get back to documenting my boat racing history that I started a while back, before "Daytona Time" caught up with me.

Stay tuned,
George (The "Grey Fox" of Daytona)

[Gene East]

George,

I know from our e-mail exchanges that # 637 is YOUR BIKE. Very nice!

Sounds like you guys had your share of problems but had some success and some fun as well. Kind of like boat racing, huh?

Congratulations!





P.S. I like the Ford!

[Master Oil Racing Team]

I've been exactly where you've been while writing your report George and know the feeling well. You pour all you got into getting all that happened into a concise report and are happy to have finished only to find out it's gone forever. It just takes it all out of you, and you just cannot duplicate the effort to put it back together like it was. You did a marvelous job on the short version though.

Here's a hint you might find comes in handy sometime. When I start writing a story here on BRF that takes some time and I have to think about something during the writing, or if I have to take a call or whatever that takes time before I finish, I have found that when I go to submit the story I am logged out. I wrote several long stories a two or three times before I could do them without being logged out. One was "Billy Zimmatore" and it just took too long to get everything in and it was a year after I started before I finally got the thread on because I kept getting frustrated. It was then that I found the solution. If you have completed your story and get the screen that comes up showing you are logged out, don't go to the upper right to log in. Scroll down below the copy you have written and you will find another slot to log on just as you normally would. When you log in there, your stuff will be saved and will be properly posted.

Enjoyed your Daytona piece very much and look forward to you getting back to where you left off with the outboards.

[Danny Pigott]

Wayne, i thought the story you did about Billy Zimmatore, was one of the best i have ever read . He was the most Amazing person i have ever heard of. Sometime when things are going bad for me, i think about him an say why am i worried about this small problem . You should put it on a sticky or somewhere where everybody could read it, i know a lot of people here have never read it, but they should.

[ezryder]

Thought everyone would enjoy a story about 2Old Racing that a European friend of mine posted on his vintage m/c racing page:
http://www.classicyams.com/personali...ld-racing.html

Ludy Beumer is the guy that made things happen in Europe, with regard to Yamaha GP racing back in "the days".

EZ

[ezryder]

Hi Everyone,
It's been a while since I posted any more of my boat racing history. But I did keep you informed of my Motorcycle Racing "Daytona Adventure". Had a GREAT time with all my friends!

I'm going to head over to Ocoee for the stock nationals on Saturday and meet up with John Schubert. Really looking forward to meeting him!!
He started racing in my era, in the 50's, but we never met. He was mainly stock outboard at the time I was doing Alky. so our paths never crossed.

I've dug up some more stuff out of my past to post. Hope you enjoy it!

Pix: Geo & Byrne's APBA cards.jpg
Oh MY, Now you have an Idea of just how "old" I really am! hehe.

I've included some pictures that I took at Lake Alfred back in Jan of 1954.
Just right click on the image. Then left click on "save image as". You will now have a short comment on the photo to read.

You'll notice some pictures of Archie Golson's rig and a shot of him ready to head out for a race.

I met Archie in '53. He was a Master Sgt. in the air force and was stationed at our AFB in Orlando. Archie was a real "trip", believe me! He taught me the meaning of "WFO", big time!

We were at a race over in Cocoa Beach, Fl. It was a stock outboard race. And the race was held in the inland waterway.
Yea, salt water! And ROUGH as hell!!!
Any way, in the first heat of BSH Archie took off and won. I "pussy footed" around due to the rough water and finished way down field!
When I pulled in Archie started in on me. He said "your a pussy"!!! Get your "**** together"!!!!
He took a piece of wire and walked over to my Swift hydro and wired the throttle wide open. Then he said " that's the way to win", and walked away.
Well, I got the message! And when we went out for the second heat, I really hit the start perfectly, or so I thought!
Got to the first turn first, rolled out onto the back stretch WFO, head down -- and I was in the lead!!!! WOW!

Then I noticed a problem! The horizon was no longer horozontal, as I looked out the side of the cockpit. Why, you
ask? Because the nose of my Swift was pointing straight up!!

After they towed what was left of my hydro and motor back to the pits, I was informed that I also jumped the gun! So I was never even part of the race.
Well, what do you expect from a 14 year old with balls larger
than his brain!! hehe

My dad was really "pissed" since I still had the throttle WFO when the motor sucked in the first of the salt water.
Needless to say, a huge explosion followed. The motor --- AND my dad!!!

Of course, I profited from this experience. I didn't do another one of these types of mistakes for a couple of months!!

More later ---
EZ

[ezryder]

Remember back a while ago when I posted some information on the fact that my Dad was involved in Stock Car Racing. And had a driver named Phil Orr that won a lot of races for my dad?

Well, here's a couple of photos of my Dad's stock car and me. These were taken in 1953. I was posing with Dad's car. But I also began racing it on dirt tracks the following year myself.
My Mother would have "killed" my Dad had she known!

Carter Frame and Wheel was a company in Orlando that did wheel alignments. They helped sponsor our driver, Phil Orr.
Their family members still own the company to this day.

These photos were taken in front of Bob Lester's Welding Shop on Pine Street. Notice that back then almost all the roads in Orlando were brick roads.

Bob Lester rented out a portion of his welding ship to the Hagood Brothers. They were just starting up their Mercury outboard motor dealership. This was in 1951.
It did not take long for them to move into their own facilities as Mercury outboards were starting to sell very well.

One of the Hagood Brothers, (Tommy) won the BSH championship I believe in 1952 or 1953.

I've also attached some photos of the races in Lake Wales in
1954. They were held 1/17/1954, and were part of the Citrus Circuit races held every winter. The week before the race was at Lake Alfred. That's where the pictures for my last posting were taken.

There's a picture of me and my boats on my trailer. The Hydro is a Swift. And the runabout is a Sid Craft.
I finished second to Archie Golsan in the BSH, and won the
BSR race using my Sid and my Merc KG7H.

The other pictures are of (first name escapes me) Webster. He came down from Ontario to escape the cold. I don't have a clue as to why I remembered his last name, but for some reason, I did.
Maybe because my middle name is Webster???
Who knows!!!!!!!!!!!
Anyway, he finished second to me with his Sid Craft and Merc
KG7H.

More later ---
EZ

[FurnalFlyer]

I think the Webester that you are talking about is John .He still shows up at boat races and might be at Ocoee.
Leigh