How Norton Conquered Daytona

HOW NORTON CONQUERED DAYTONA
Before Daytona’s famous high banks, there was the unforgiving Beach Course, where sand, surf and speed created one of motorcycle racing’s toughest challenges – and where Norton’s legendary Manx 500 found itself very much at home.

A Race Written in Sand
It's been more than 60 years since a race was last held there, but should you ever go to Daytona Beach, Florida and head south along the sand from the high-rise hotels and low-rise bars of the self-styled World's Most Famous Beach, you'll eventually come to the distinguishable remains of the old Beach Course, which hosted the running of the Daytona 200-mile race until 1961. In that year, the present-day Speedway with its famously steep 31-degree banking came into operation, leaving the palmetto shrubs on one side, and the rolling Atlantic breakers on the other, to gradually erode a piece of American racing history.

The First Daytona Battles
But in heading the no less than 26 single-cam Nortons that showed up in 1948 for the second Daytona 200 run after the war, Mathews could only finish second after a wheel-to-wheel battle with local favourite Floyd Emde’s Indian, having lost time at a pit stop when one of his team spilt fuel over the bike, and the engine had to be stopped – it was normal practice to keep it running while refueling.

Kickstarting the big, tuned single was hard work, and bump-starting it on the damp sand proved problematic – but the Canadian eventually got away and was originally acclaimed the winner, only to be deprived of victory after Indian lodged a protest, and AMA officials reversed the results after seven hours spent poring over the scoring charts for the 154-strong field of bikes in those pre-transponder days.

Finishing second best wasn't what Norton's tough-minded boss Smith wanted, so the following year Norton returned, but with another even more illustrious tuner in charge, Francis Beart, who was famed for his organisation and astute planning.

The Manx Makes Its Mark
Squeezed as an interim measure into the plunger-sprung Garden Gate chassis of the existing single-cam Manx (the legendary McCandless-designed Featherbed frame wouldn't appear for another year), the twin-cam Norton 500 was powerful enough to enable Mathews to win at record speed.

He averaged 88.55 mph including stopping at half-distance for fuel, to defeat the factory 750cc Harley-Davidson and Indian V-twins as well as Triumph and BSA, both of which had now joined in to try to offset their rival British marque’s growing prestige in the USA.

Klamfoth won again on an identical bike in 1951 at a record speed of 92.50mph, after Mathews was refused entry to the USA by American immigration officials at Niagara Falls on his way to compete in the Florida race, as a result of being deemed to have Communist persuasions in that McCarthyite era by being an active supporter of the local Labour Party.

The Last Laugh
Klamfoth’s win came despite the AMA refusing to let Norton equip the bikes with its new lighter, better-handling Featherbed frame, by now in production, and they maintained this refusal for ‘52 when, although Beart stayed in England, Dick Klamfoth won again, to complete his personal hat-trick of victories and four successive Daytona 200 wins for Norton, with a bike still fitted with the obsolete Garden Gate frame – so called because its plunger rear suspension gave the impression of the metal frame swinging on a hinge. It handled like one, too.

This win gave the British manufacturer and their American rider the last laugh, in overcoming what seemed to be a home town decision to help out Harley and Indian, albeit in a race Dick nearly missed.

The Beart Advantage
This time around, Indian surely didn't mind too much that the British DOHC 500cc single had defeated its 750cc flathead V-twins, for by then it had been appointed as the US distributor for Norton, and indeed it was Indian race boss Jimmy Hill who’d prepared Klamfoth’s winning bike.

But the series of Norton victories was due as much as anything to the various aspects of Francis Beart's methodical planning, especially the ultra-fast pit stops for refuelling.

For Beart was the first to develop an early version of the dump cans which are now the norm for replenishment in long distance Endurance racing today, using a bathplug attached to a chain which, when yanked, delivered four gallons of fuel to the tank and thus allowed 12-second pits stops, over a third of the time of Norton’s rivals.

He’d also made a host of detail modifications to the bikes to counter the unique challenges imposed by the combined sand and tarmac course, from enclosed primary chains and drip-fed lubrication of the rear chains to ward off the sand’s corrosive effect, through radial fins welded to the pressure plate to act as a fan in cooling the enclosed clutch, to a specially-adapted International-model street gearbox with a more usable, much higher, bottom gear, and fitted with a kick-start to satisfy AMA requirements – even though the race began with a rolling start.

Beart thoroughly deserved the special gilt trophy he was awarded as the 'Victorious Mechanic' on his bikes' third victory in 1951 – a trophy he donated to the UK’s Classic Racing Motorcycle Club/CRMC on its foundation in 1979, and is today awarded annually for the best performance by a CRMC member in international Historic competition outside the UK.

Indeed, in some ways Norton’s Daytona dominance outranks its success in Grand Prix racing, with a single 500cc World Championship in 1951 for Norton-mounted Geoff Duke, and two 350cc World titles in 1951/52, before he switched to Gilera to earn a further trio of 500cc crowns aboard the Italian multis.

Norton’s little-remembered quintet of Daytona 200 race victories on the old Beach Course marked the first time that European motorcycles had successfully challenged the transatlantic dominance of Harley-Davidson and Indian in American competition, and represented the start of a similar success story for British manufacturers in showroom sales charts in the USA.

It was a very proud chapter in the long history of Britain’s most famous sporting marque.

Dick Klamfoth and Francis Beart were a dream team, each a skilful and precise practitioner of his trade. “After the practices on the Beach and runs along Route 1 to tune the Norton to its optimum performance, we would truck the motorcycle south towards New Smyrna Beach,” recalled Klamfoth. “Francis would fire up the machine, and I would ride it flat out for about 7 miles northwards on the sand towards Daytona Beach. At about 130 mph with the sea to my right, it was undoubtedly the most exciting experience on a motorcycle I have ever had. Provided Francis was happy with the colour of the combustion chamber - he never relied on a ‘plug chop’, but would lift the cylinder head to look inside - that was our final preparation before the race”.

In 1950 Klamfoth earned five AMA podium finishes, including winding up second at Daytona - but 1951 was his most successful season. He began with a repeat victory in the Daytona 200, and followed that up with AMA National wins at the half-mile ovals in Richmond, Va., and Shreveport, La., as well as taking victory in the Laconia Classic road race, all as ever on Nortons. Klamfoth set a new record by winning his third Daytona 200 in March 1952, after narrowly avoiding non-starting [see History article] His record of three Daytona 200-mile wins was tied, but not broken until 1998, when Scott Russell took his fourth Daytona 200 victory. Klamfoth raced throughout the 1950s, then went into semi-retirement after the 1962 season – though he did venture back to Daytona in 1964 so he could finally race on the high banking of the super Speedway. In that, his final Pro race, Dick Klamfoth took a very credible fifth place finish on a Matchless G50, rounding off his racing career with a total of 12 AMA National victories and one international race win.

As astute a businessman as he was a racer, Dick Klamfoth became the first Honda motorcycle dealer east of the Mississippi, later becoming one of the USA’s largest motorcycle dealers for any brand. He also promoted AMA National Motocross races at his Central Ohio Honda Hills complex. He retired from business in 1989, and was inducted into the Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 1998. Together with his wife Beverly, Dick led the campaign to create the Daytona 200 Monument which was unveiled in 2002 beside the Beach in downtown Daytona, to commemorate the legendary Beach Course which put Daytona on the map as the World Center of Speed. Dick Klamfoth passed away in December 2019, aged 91.