Champion Spark Plug's

[Mike Bretsch]

My farther was a Engineer at Champion Spark Plug Co. in Toledo, Ohio. He retired in 1971 after 48.5 year's of service. He was the person that designed the spark plug's that ran in the Quincy motor's. They had one Quincy engine which they tested in their Dyno Lab. in the 60's. I remember going there and hearing the engine running wide open in the test tank. You could hear it all the way up to the engineering dept. They would run it that way for hour's. In 1970 I started working in the Dyno Lab and the engine was still there. Not sure what happened to it. I was there for 32 years, then the company was downsized and I was let go. I did work with the old guys from racing dept, Skip Mason and Bill Dilday. I have moved from Toledo to Sarasota Fl and I met the son of the Owner of Quincy Welding at a couple of car show's. I now have a 1961 Pontiac Catalina with a 421ci motor that my wife and I restored. I just wanted to say that the picture's seen on this website have brought back some nice memories. I did also race 1/4 mile drag boats in the 70's.

[Ron Hill]

Mike...

My mind is going...Who use to be like President of Champion Spark Plugs.

Dick Jone and Bobby Strallman ran the Long Beach R and D plant out here. I know that Dick Jones did a lot of development work on the Drake Offy with they turbo charged it and Bobby Unser won the Indy 500 with that engine...Dick had an SK that was fast as hell!!!!

Bobby and his wife would come to a lot of our races...They seemed to have a good budget, as they sometime bought us dinner after the races.

Ted May became their BEST FRIENDS and for years had HUNDREDS of Champion Spark Plugs...I was 22 years old and college graduate before I knew there were any other plugs but Champion.

Champion Spark Plugs was good for boat racing. They gave $100 to each APBA National Champion, and usually gave a jacket too...

Your father, Mike, may have helped my dad develop the J64G (G for gold...a plug between the J5J and the J6J)........J64G isn't the number, I don't think.. We LOVED HO-3's and when platinum went to a hundred dollars a plug or something like that, Champion tried to a replacement for the HO-3 (The HO-3 was designed for the Chevy Corvette but worked GREAT in a 55-H).

In 1978, Champion sent me about 8 boxes of different plugs to try in my Triple C Evinrude....

Thanks for posting!!!!

Just remebered the name: Dick Gail was the President of Champion...Spent several evenings talking with him at APBA Conventions....He always thought my brother was going to be President of APBA....He also thought my brother had an IQ of 2000....

[bill boyes]

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.

[Composite Specialties]

Hey Mike, does the L84R sound familiar?

[David Weaver]

Hey Mike, does the L84R sound familiar?

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!

[Tomtall]

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

[Master Oil Racing Team]

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.

[Gstillwill]

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.

[Mike Bretsch]

Mike...

My mind is going...Who use to be like President of Champion Spark Plugs.

Dick Jone and Bobby Strallman ran the Long Beach R and D plant out here. I know that Dick Jones did a lot of development work on the Drake Offy with they turbo charged it and Bobby Unser won the Indy 500 with that engine...Dick had an SK that was fast as hell!!!!

Bobby and his wife would come to a lot of our races...They seemed to have a good budget, as they sometime bought us dinner after the races.

Ted May became their BEST FRIENDS and for years had HUNDREDS of Champion Spark Plugs...I was 22 years old and college graduate before I knew there were any other plugs but Champion.

Champion Spark Plugs was good for boat racing. They gave $100 to each APBA National Champion, and usually gave a jacket too...

Your father, Mike, may have helped my dad develop the J64G (G for gold...a plug between the J5J and the J6J)........J64G isn't the number, I don't think.. We LOVED HO-3's and when platinum went to a hundred dollars a plug or something like that, Champion tried to a replacement for the HO-3 (The HO-3 was designed for the Chevy Corvette but worked GREAT in a 55-H).

In 1978, Champion sent me about 8 boxes of different plugs to try in my Triple C Evinrude....

Thanks for posting!!!!

Just remebered the name: Dick Gail was the President of Champion...Spent several evening B talking with him at APBA Conventions....He always thought my brother was going to be President of APBA....He alos thought my brother had an IQ of 2000....

Ron;

Hope I'm doing this right. Yes, I remember all the guys you spoke about. I had met Dick and Bobby when they came to Toledo for meeting's. I did a lot of work with Skip, he sure new his stuff about racing plug's. The president of Champion in those day's was Robert A. Stranahan Jr. I knew Dick Gail very well and he did like to party with the racer's. He may have said he was the president but he was the Director of Racing Dept. He also new his spark plug's. Sadly, all the old racing guy's have past away except Dick Gail and he is not in good health. He is still in Toledo. I was just on the phone to one of my old friends who was a racing engineer at the time the Quincy was out there, his name was Bill Nagy and he had called on Quincy Welding about the engine and spark plug's. He is also getting up in age, but doing good. He said he throught that the compression ratio on the engine was around 19:1. If anyone know's if that is correct,let me know. I do know the fellow in the dyno lab who could start it was a giant on a man. Seem's the HO-3 was used in a lot of engine's. I still have some J64P plug's that I still put in my 1961 Pontiac with the 421 race motor.

[Gstillwill]

Im pretty sure you could send the used plugs back to Champion and have them reconditioned and they would come back each plug in its own plain white box with just the number of the plug stamped on the end of it and said Champion reconditioned. I had some L58R's like that after they stoped making that number.