Anyone remember Starley Riggs?

[jmendoza]

Starley was quite an enthusiast and engine tuner in karting in the 1960's. He had moved out to California from Ohio with his son's Steve and Bill, and one day while on his Honda Hawk 305, going to pick up pizza, he was killed a few blocks from his home by a drunk driver. That was about 1972. Anyway, I met his sons while in high school and saw Starley's twin engined Dart Kart, it had a couple gold West Bends on it. There was also a huge pile of WBs, PP, and Macs along with almost every manifold and kart engine accessory ever made: Reed, Palmini, Go-Power, Vantek, Hegar, Horstman, GEM, Azusa, Wiseco, Moss, Hurst/Airheart, and many more I cannot remember. There was even a bigger pile of trophies from racing, so I'm thinking he was quite active and successfull back in the mid-Ohio region in the mid 1960's. Does anyone remember Starley?

The workmanship on the porting was sculpture in metal, Starley had tweeked everything. He had added two booster ports to an AH-61 Power Products, and it had a reshaped dome on the Reed head, a Wiseco piston with two windows to feed the boosters, and split rollers on the big end rod bearing. Some of the Macs were "9 ported", there were MC-2,4,6,7,8,9,10, 20, 40, 75, and others so manyI cannot seem to recall every one. Then there were the huge pile of West Bends, 580, 700, (5 ports) 610 and 820 engines, all of which had received Starley's personal touch. Bill told me his dad always took every motor apart before running it to see what could be improved, and all he had was hand tools to accomplish that task, no lathes or mills. According to Bill, Starley's engines were always fast, so much so that often they checked his engines as everyone was sure he had an illegal modofication, but he always passed the tech inspections! Bill said the McCulloch guys could not beleive how he could pull them with a Power Products / Lawson-Tecumseh, and he also said Starley got a real kick out of stumping the McCulloch, and Bug teams when they came to the local track.

Steve Riggs gave me his Dad's PP AH-61, and the remains of a busted up WB 700 5 port that had half the fins gone, and a 1/2 wide, 1/8 inch deep gouge in the cylinder above the ports, but it had a dual carb manifolf and an extra Palmini piston w/ rod, but no other parts like the magneto plate, flywheel, or crank.

If you look on eBay today, Bill Riggs is selling off a bunch of West Bend pistons, rings, flywheels, ignition parts, and cranks....all NOS. I bought one 580 piston from him and was surprised to make contact with him again for the first time since 1975! He had long ago moved to Kentucky and I had lost track of the Riggs family. Although he sold off all his dad's stuff some 25+ years ago, he still has the Dart(no, it's not for sale!) and he purchased a large lot of West Bend parts so check him out as a good source.

[Dean Seavers]

Great story Jay! I hope someone rembembers him and can give some insight on what he was like to run with. It's neat taht Bill still has his dad's kart.

Dean