Frank...
This is the letter we talked about that I received from Dwain Taylor, reflecting on some of the races we had in the very early 60's. I wasn't able to get my hands on the pictures easily. I will keep looking for them though...
Dusty:
If you find an old picture of the Deuce you may not recognize it, because it was rebuilt twice and the pictures you have are version #2 & #3. You may not remember what it looked like after all these years. The final version was done in 1962 and was the one that really ran. I am sorry I don't have a single picture of it. It was black in color and had a Whizzer motor bike fuel tank.The problem with #2 (fuel) was traction. We just could not get enough. #3 had three things done to help it with this that completely changed its appearance. It was shortened, it was lightened and the exhaust system was changed. To shorten it, the frame center down tube between the two engines was removed, and the forward engine was raised way up and moved to the front to the point where the bottom of the front engine carbs were above the exhaust pipes on the rear engine. When finished it was only about 3 inches longer than a stock one engine bike. To lighten it, every part was inspected to see how weight could safely be removed. Everything was drilled full of holes, even the inside of almost every bolt was drilled out from the bottom on the lathe. I can't remember the final weight, but I do remember it weighed 38 pounds less when finished, and very little more than a stock bike with one engine. The exhaust pipes on the front engine were turned out (no megaphones) at the end, and the rear engine pipes were turned in and down toward the ground directly in front to the rear tire so as to blow dirt and dust off the pavement. This was VERY effective. I did my best to get enough weight shift to the rear to make it stand up, so we could use a much lighter 400X18 slick instead of the 500X16. I was unable to do this and it would still spin about half way through the quarter. #2 usually ran in the upper 9s and lower 140s, and I believe it was the first motorcycle ever to run in the 9s. #3 would almost always run in the lower 9s at about 150. I never worked for more speed at the end, ET is what wins drag races. Grandma finally ran in the lower 10s and the lower 130s. The Deuce won very few events simply because Grandma always won, and there was seldon a class for the Deuce. The strips would pay us to run the Deuce for show. They always wanted to pit the Deuce against the sling shot rails, and we could out run many of the gas rails and some of the fuel burners. We could not handle the fastest ones. We could always beat them off the line, and the best ones would catch us at or very near the finish line, so here was Billy running 150 MPH with the rails running 180 or more passing him at the end with the parachute popping out in front of him. It didn't seem to bother Billy, but I became afraid and put a stop to it.
As to the Parasite. John Melniszuk was probably the most meticulas mechanic I ever knew. The Parasite had more very careful fit and finish than the factory would have done. It was imulacute from one end to the other, and it seemed to always run good. He also entered several bikes in the Daytona 200. They were built with the same care, but I don't remember any of them doing anything outstanding. The story about how the Parasite got its name is inaccurate because it ran for some time with one engine, and was named the Parasite then. Grandma never ran against it because he was on gas and Grandma was on fuel. I only saw him at Daytona, and because the AMA had a strict rule against running out of class either up or down in the early years AMA sanctioned drags at Daytona had no top eliminator runs, and they NEVER had any decent clocks. The very first time the Deuce was ever run on a drag strip was in Daytona in I think 1960. It was on gas and had several bugs in it. For one thing, I had connected the two kill terminals on the magnetos to a common kill switch. We ran it in Albany on the highway and it miss fired. (no drag strip in Albany then) I tinkered with it and it seemed to correct the problem, but when we arrived in Daytona it started again, and the Parasite showed up with two engines. Although Grandma won the open fuel class and our street bike won the street class the Deuce lost to the Parasite. When we were back in Albany it didn't take long to find out the connector between the mags was causing the misfire, but it was too late then. This was the only time we ever ran against the Parasite. I watched it in the motorcycle press for several years and it would have been a very interesting run between the Parasite on gas and Grandma on fuel. The Parasite was faster at the end, but Grandma was quicker on ET, and ET is what wins drag races. It would have been no contest between the Deuce on fuel and the Parasite on gas because the Deuce was a full second quicker than Grandma.
It would be interesting if you could locate The Deuce. Lots of luck with it.
Dwain
Below is a picture of Dwain at his house in Albany GA. at our 45 year reunion March of 2008. compare this picture of him with the photo on page 16, post # 312, picture on left.....