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COLUMN TimeForgotten AyrnNA FALL TOUR DAYTONA BEACH FLORIDA OcrnUER 16-18 1992 Group touring ride of the Daytona . Beach Resort Area. Visit the natural beauty of this scenic tour with fellow enthusiasts, just for the joy of riding before winter's cold. Proceeds benefit the Motorcycle Safety Advisory Council. ~ SANCTlONfO THE 14th ANNUAL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES FINALE AT DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY featuring the road racing stars of tomorrow competing in three days of winner-take-all national championship competition. BIG BEACH. BIG R1N.~ FOR INFORMATION ON ACCOMMODATIONS CALL: TOLL FREE 1-800-854-1234 FOR RACE TICKETS AND INFORMATION CALL: DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY 904-253-RACE (7223) £:'ff(fJ} IMPROVE CYLINDER EFFICIENCY The BORE TECH process impregnates diamond·hard Silicon Carbide particles into the cylinder wall (not a coating). Some of the advantages of this process are: Anti-Seizure properties Immediate break-in Improved ring seal Leaner fuel mixtures Lower operating temperatures Excellent wear characteristics For more infromation contact: (513) 625·8374 5977 Hutchinson R~d, Batavia, Ohio 45103 BORE TECH 34 Booze boat skipper By Joe Scalzo ummer temperatures along the Colorado River shore recently shot out of control, so the region's most celebrated inhabitant, Johnny "Board Track" Branson, fled the burning river to find temporary relief elsewhere. Of course, the heat was also abysmal in Kansas City on the boiling afternoon when Branson sliced to pieces the elite timber squads of Harley-Davidson and Indian. Branson, however, was 69 years younger then. If you're going to live your life like a legend, it's best to begin early. The Branson epic began violently, with Branson, reputedly the renegade son of the warden of the Missouri State' Penitentiary, supine in the dust and roar of the old Independence Fairgrounds after crashing and facing the amputation of his right foot. But the quack who was threatening to do it got a death warning from Branson's sister instead. And Branson raced on with an alarming set of scars . and has walked with a drunken stagger ever since. In September:1923, he caught a fast freight and rode the rails into Kansas City for Labor Day's big ~oard track meet. A surplus Harley-Davidson belonging to the venerable dealer Bill Stranahan was up for grabs to anyone who thought 'he could survive the experience of attacking the factory arsenals in the 100-mile race. Branson popped off and got the ride. He was photographed afterward wild-eyed and in a condition of ecstatic shock for achieving one of the most unimaginable, unbelievable racing upsets of recorded time. Ralph Hepburn, totally annihilated by Branson, never quite got over it. From the looming boards, Branson S embarked on the circus and sideshow circuit as motordome rider, an occupation which required riding a roaring cycle around inside an oversize barrel. \ He rode the act clear to Manila, and made a lot of money in Singapore. Another opportunity suddenly presented itself. While in Borneo and Siam, Branson discovered that wild beasts were in demand by zoos back in the U.S., so he immediately set to work capturing and exporting two elephants, a pair of tigers, various leopards, a family of flying foxes, several deadly poisonous cobras and constrictor pythons, a few thousand shrieking birds - "every goddamn thing you can think of," he redllled decades afterward, with satisfaction. Back in the U.S. again, in 1932 he visited Brownsburg in Texas to dicker over the purchase of yet another enormous serpent. Down there he read in the paper of the bloody California murder of Captain Walter Wanderwell, a crackpot paramilitary peace messiah with his own delapidated rumrunner - the Carma, who was blasted into eternity while his liquor boat was at anchor in a criminal backwater of Long Beach. Branson hurried out to the Pacific seafront. He saw the chance to reinvent the Carma as an adventure yacht and to sell passage for a romantic cruise to the far southern seas. High-toned folk promptly purchased tickets, . including a banker from Los Angeles, "an actor from Hollywood, and an opera .tenor from San Diego. He also saw the financial windfall of offering a form of entertainment at whatever ports the Carma called. So he wrestled aboard a huge Ferris wheel, a calliope, three live monkeys, and a trio of seals trained to juggle balls, straddle tight ropes, and play musical instruments. Branson also hired Speedy Babbs, a slap-happy wall-ofdeath cyclist and maniac aviatoi devoted to wing-walking and parachuting out of blimps. Babbs was appointed ship'.s cook. At one point the Carma drifted 1050 miles off course. It was that kind of voyage. Limping down the west coast of Mexico, the Carm~ had her clutch burnout past the inlet at Turtle Bay. And her 40-year-old diesels succumbed about the same time, taking with them the bilge pumps and the ability to lower anchors. Sustenance consisted of aged rice and ~ldy beans, plus some tubs of raw peanut butter which Captain Wanderwell had kept in the hold, and that not even the monkeys would touch. One sample of the cuisine Speedy Babbs was dishing up caused Branson to hurl it - and almost Babbs, too - over the side. Everybody came down with malnutrition and the seals jumped overboard. Off Cabo San Lucas, Branson subdued a mutiny, gaining control by ordering all hands to commence bailing, for the Carma was sinking. Then she reached the mouth of the harbor at Mazatlan. While his pitch shows, Ferris wheel, . and animal acts were setting up along the wharfs and docks, Branson had the bright, dangerous idea of a publicity stunt involving Speedy Babbs. He sent him up in an ancient Bianca airship to afford Mazatlan's citizenry its first parachute jump. Babbs dropped 2000 feet, at first getting olown toward the sharkinfested estuary. But he landed on top of a hotel instead. His parachute dropped over the side of the building and struck high tensions wires which were not insulated. . Now Branson worried about Babbs wandering loose ashore. And, he had reason for concern. Babbs next made an hysterical appearance at the city's plaza de toros, and in this exhibition afforded something different for onlookers, since he was riding an Indian Scout while fighting the bull. Afterward he visited the biggest bordello in town, created a disturbance, then was chased back to the Carma where he was well-bitten by a monkey. The bull battle apparently unhinged him. Some 40-odd years afterward, this time in the Florida Everglades, Babbs engaged)n the same illicit activity. For his trouble, he was fatally gored. All Branson's plans got discom~b ulated. He lost the Carma. He had to refund passage to the banker, the actor, and the singer. Continuing to expand his legend, he moved to a lonely, arid bend of the Colorado between the California communities of Blythe and Needles and due east of Arizona's Lake Havasu City. There, he became the land baron he is today. Approaching the age of 90, he still has his historic limp. His pastimes include spreading the glory of board track racing, defending the last voyage of the Carma ("Hell of a trip - I'd go on another one tomorrow!"), and still cursing that crazy, dumb son of a bitch, Speedy Babbs. This is the first of a new series of . columns by Joe Scalzo, a noted motorsports writer. Scalzo has authored several books, including biographies of Grand National Champions Gary Nixon, Bart Markel and Dick Mann. In future columns: Scalzo will continue to take a look at "Time Forgotten" and also connect it with the present. ... Editor.