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Few motorcyclists
have not heard of the famous
Daytona 200-mile race in the
USA. One of the few American
races to figure highly with
the British motorcycle industry.
Since the early ’60s
it has been run on a purpose
built speedway, but most of
the legends grew up around
the old beach course. So when
Tim Britton saw these genuine
period colour photos he just
knew there was a tale. Enjoy
the pics, read the words and
feel the sand between your
toes.
 I
blame Nick Simpson for all
this, see, Nick is K &
S Frames and he specialises
in making BSA dirt track frames,
and trials bike frames too
come to that. Nick and I cross
paths fairly regularly and
CBG was invited to test his
Goldie trials bike during
the summer.
As lensman Terry Joslin was
snapping away at the static
shots Nick said “come
and have a look at some old
BSA photos while I get the
kettle on.”
He rummaged in the pile of
papers in his desk and handed
me half a dozen sheets of
A4 paper with colour pictures
on, saying “they’re
printouts of period 1954 slides,
taken at Daytona.” Where
did you get these,” I
blurted. “They turned
up in the States,” he
said. “I’ve been
doing some work with the team
that’s restoring a couple
of the 1954 Daytona team bikes,
you know that was the year
that BSA took the first five
places and had six bikes in
the top 10, which was some
feat. Obviously 2004 is the
50th Anniversary of that race
and the celebrations are going
to be big. I don’t know
that much about the project,
really the guy you want to
speak to is Myles Raymond,
in Glasgow.”
Which is how I came to be
seated around Myles’
kitchen table, in his house
in Glasgow’s south side,
hearing all about Project
Daytona. “I suppose it
started back when I got interested
in motorbikes as a youngster,”
says Myles. “I always
liked the BSA twins and British
bikes in general, I suppose.
After doing the young rider/poor
student/earning a living bit,
that takes many of us away
from bikes for a while I got
to the stage where I had time
to think about motorcycles
again. Naturally it was BSA
that interested me and I was
researching the fitting of
twin carburettors on to non-unit
twins and found quite a few
anomalies, parts books and
references just didn’t
add up,” says Myles.
“About three years ago
I decided to set up a website
to publish the information
and find out more. Two guys
in Florida, Don Bradley and
Bob Birddall, saw my site.
They were restoring two of
the Daytona bikes that were
part of the BSA clean sweep
in 1954, and we began exchanging
information. The whole project
has grown from there. With
the 50th Anniversary coming
up we decided that if we could
actually get the bikes sorted,
and surviving team members
together we could make a big
thing of it at Daytona during
bike week.”
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At
this point Myles began handing
me more A4 paper with printed
photos on. “Some time
into the project we got hold
of some colour slides taken
during the race and it was
incredible to see everything
in actual living colour, instead
of black and white. The project
really got started when Don
got a Daytona rigid frame
about three or four years
ago, with the idea of building
a team bike replica. 