John (Taylor) Gabrowski
03-28-2005, 12:34 AM
In these parts Ted Coates or Coatsy as they used to call him designed and built the Banshee series of racing runabouts once he got creamed/clobbered in C-Service by DeSilva Merc powered racing runabouts. When he got to Banshee V and got himself a Merc H engine, he finally started to get even and a few seasons later figured out he needed a new Banshee VI racing runabout with some needed design changes to do even better than the deSilvas that he was now doing very well against. Banshee VI turned out to be a diseaster in comparisson to Banshee V. For some reason it just kept porposing and with that it also refused to corner well and spun out a lot no matter what turning fin position of setting he could think of to correct it. It did it with his KG9-H and with his C-Service engines so one day he asked me if I wanted to buy it as he was going to take another run at it with a Banshee VII version in planning stages that never got built. In the meantime I poured over as to why the wacky ride by that time with a Merc 55H and I was told point blank that it lacked power to keep the bow up! We put a early Merc 44 inch Quincy piped gas Modified on it and ran it in Alky F classes when we could here and in the Northwest. We got some crazy looks from other racers doing that as the engine did not "smell" right, so we castered her up and smelled like the rest quite soon after that! :)
That is a picture from 1976 in my backyard when I was getting her mock rigged for her first race meet as an "F" on the following weekend. How did she do?? Two real bad spinouts the first day and all smiles the second day.
That is a picture from 1976 in my backyard when I was getting her mock rigged for her first race meet as an "F" on the following weekend. How did she do?? Two real bad spinouts the first day and all smiles the second day.