Champion Spark Plug's

[Skoontz]

Champions were the only plugs we sold at the West Side Boathouse. I remember about '65 or so, OMC gave their plug contract to AC, well, at least all the new Evinrudes we sold had them in for a year....I remeber dad pulling the hood off a 100-S and looking saying what the F---- are those G dam things doing in this motor??The next year, Champion was right back and never left.

[Master Oil Racing Team]

We ran L87's in all our motors except the 350cc VB Konig. L87's were too hot. Sounds kind of strange doesn't it. I never heard of an L85 or L86 so I always figured L87 was only a little bit different from the L84. Maybe Mike can fill us in.

Anyway... we were holding the 2nd half of the 1968 NOA World Championships which was blown in Minnesota out at my Dad's house. When we raced there a lot of my high school classmates showed up, and some of my best friends wanted to pit. We always had a team that traveled all over with us, but against our best judgement we let one guy help. Basically, we let him hand us tools, carry fuel cans, etc. It was our stupid mistake to ask him to give us some new plugs to put in the B. A couple of new packages of L84's were opened and set on a box in the trailer. Unfortunately, an L87 was next to them and was one of the four he picked up. No one checked. That plug ended up in the top rear cylinder.

I pulled out of the pits to test and just barely broke over on a plane when the power dropped off and the motor made a sound like I never heard before. Back in the pits we took out the plugs and the L87was ashen white/grey with metal splatters all over it and we found a 5mm hole all the way through the piston. The races weren't until the next day, so I was up until midnight overhauling the motor. Because of that I missed the famous shootout when Jack Chance fired off a chamber full of blanks at the "ferocious little wood creature" that Jerry Simison's crew brought down from Minnesota.

[russhill]

I think the President's name was Earl Twining. I rubbed elbows with a lot of those Dudes at the Indy races. I drove by the 11th Street shop in Long Beach yesterday, as a result of reading this post. It's still there in a pretty decrepid state. If it weren't for the huge tank in the back that stored the water used for the dyno, I wouldn't have been sure I was there. Booby thought a swimming pool would have been a better means of cooling water.

The last time I saw Bobby Strallman was in Key West at an offshore race. He and his wife were going to Miami the next day to watch the Dolphins play. That was the year that Miami won all 17 games. I believe that was '73.

Bobby and his wife were two of the greatest people on earth.

Champion has always supported boat racing. (or at least as far back as '41, thats as far as I can remember.) I made a vow that I would never buy another brand of spark plug, unless they came in a new car or something. When Bunker started racing Yamatos, they came with some Japanese brand X plug and I wouldn't let him run. I went out and bought Champions. Everybody said you gotta run the Japanese plugs. Well after winning 36 consecutive heats, we showed that CHAMPIONS worked.

[Mike Bretsch]

Remember, We would go to long Beach at the shop and Dick or Bob would give us free spark plugs. Also we would sometimes met some big name Indy racers there. They had the only Dyno around. One time I met Keith Black. He and Dick were doing a lot of Dyno work. Bob gave me some J61Y or near that.What a great plug in the 30H. Never had a plug that gave you MPH like that one did.

Bill,
Thanks for reply;
The Long Beach Dyno was the talk of the racing world back then. It was kind of state of the art testing. All the big name racers would go there. Champion was very good at helping the racer and supply them with spark plugs. Glad you had the chance to vist the lab. I also used those same J61Y in my 64' GTO drag car. The "Y" type plug was great because they would keep the plug from fouling at low speed and the fuel would cool the tip at high speed. My dad would hand make all kinds of plugs for the car and we would. find which worked best. Champion did that kind of work with a lot of racers. Take care care, Mike

[Mike Bretsch]

Hey Mike, does the L84R sound familiar?

Yes, we had alot of those heat range plugs, the L's were popular with the 2-stroke engine's. The problem with the "R" gap (known as the push wire gap) was they could foul at slow speed's. Thank's for asking.

Mike

[Skoontz]

Mike:

I was at the Bakersfield race a few weeks back and the crew chief of one of the GN boats had straightened the electrode out and was rounding off squared ends. He claimed doing that provided a better area for the spark to light the fuel in his engine. He was running a 500 or near 500 cubic inch gas burning motor using what looked like a 12-71 blower and the style bug catcher the top fuel cars run. After he filed the electrode, he bent it back and regapped the plug....I thought it was interesting he did that and that Champion just did not build the plug that way to begin with... Any thoughts here?

[Mike Bretsch]

At the 1976 SO Nationals, Champion gave 1 or 2 boxes of spark plugs to every driver. My dad made me get L84R's for his Konigs. In 1998 we were still running those same plugs in newer Konigs!

David;
Thank's for posting, all those plugs would last because they were so cold heat range the gaps wouldn't burn back. So they lasted.

Mike

[Mike Bretsch]

I think Champion provided more support for boat racing than any other brand.

That is a awsome picture, take's me back in time. As that is what I enjoy most. Yes, Champion spent a lot of time and money to get there name and plug's out to the racer's. A lot of engineering and testing was done. I can remember my dad and I taking about his new design's. Thank's, Mike

[Mike Bretsch]

The Champion L84R's & L87R's replaced the L54R and L57R sometime around 1967 0r 1968 I think. We ran thousands of them and won one NOA Championship with them. Skip Mason was there. Then when we started working together with Jerry Waldman on promoting races he switched us over to AC.

We had a wooden box full of Champion plugs that we saved to recondition. When I was first learning how to drive I went down in a turn frequently with my plugs full of water. My Dad figured it was easier for me to keep the motor lit if we changed plugs VERY often. When HP Shakeshaft II saw all those plugs he wanted to know what we intended to do with them. My Dad said he could have them if he wanted and we had a lot more back home. So he told my Dad to ship them freight collect. The box must have weighed more than 50 lbs & Shakey chewed my Dad out for the freight bill the next time we saw him. The plugs themselves didn't cost hima thing, so my Dad just turned it into one of his tales and we got a good laugh every time the subject came around to sparkplugs.

Thank's for posting, I do remember seeing plugs shipped in wood crates. Alot of racer's would look in the trash barrel's at the race's for slightly used plug's. It's always fun talking about tales'. Mike

[Mike Bretsch]

We used to get boxes of them at all the Nats used to run L-58R's till they chaged the number system then it was L-87R's in the KG-4's and L63R's in the 20H. They would even bring experimental plugs with an X and a number on them Skip would ask what plugs you were running and give you a couple sets of the experimental plugs to try you also got some draw string cloth bags with information tags attached to fill out and return them to Champion telling them what they were used in. I still have a bunch of the plugs left and a few of the experimental X plugs that never were used or got returned.

Thanks for the post, When I lived in Toledo my grarage had many of those white box's. Guy's would see them at the race's and alway's ask " what are they", we would alway's say it was a secert. Then they would keep an eye on us. Later, Mike