Big Wins For The Budget Minded

Mike and Steve Byers have been making it big helping budget racers win

It’s just the way things go that the big name racers steal all the headlines. While aspiring racers all may dream to be banging fenders with Jimmy Johnson or Kurt Busch, there are plenty of racers who are more than happy to get their driving thrills in the more affordable and often entry level racing classes.

Mike and Steve Byers have a long list of local and national clients more than proud to work with the Milton, PA-based engine building operation.
The Byers have found a niche servicing entry level and Pro Stock racers – with excellent success.

Byers Built Racing Engines, father Steve and son Mike, are making a good living building race engines for local racers at grassroots racing facilities like Selinsgrove Speedway, Susquehanna Speedway and Port Royal Speedway, which are not more than a “wrist pin’s throw” away from their 6,000 sq. ft. shop in Milton, PA. For 2009, the father/son team will have 14 cars running their engines in the entry level Roadrunner class – just reward for having created the powerplants for a series of track champions and Rookies of the Year over the past decade.

The Byer’s Built Engine Shop signage and unique mailbox mark the entrance to the home of circle track performance.

The Milton, Pa shop is only 6,000 sq. ft. but is full service delivering turn key, tuned and tested engines.

Steve Byers not only prides himself in breaking in every COMP Cams® camshaft to ensure customer satisfaction, but also makes house calls when required to ensure his engine end up in the winner’s circle.

“We have 80 feature wins in three years, built the engines for two Rookies of the Year, and four track champions in the entry level divisions at the Speedways in and around Central Pennsylvania area,” noted Steve Byers. “People from Maryland and New York have started to come to us to get an engine that will let them run up front.”

“Keith Bissinger has the car to beat at Selinsgrove Speedway” stated Mike Byers. “We started by building one engine for Keith back in 2004 for use in the entry level Road Runner division. In four years he has accumulated 32 wins and two track championships at Selinsgrove. In 2009, we will have 14 teams in this division running a Byers Built motor with a COMP Cams® camshaft in every one of them.”

Steve Byers began racing and building engines in the 1970s for drag racing competition. During that time he earned two national records in Stock Class competition, but in the early 1980’s turned to dirt track racing as a new challenge. While the drag strip offered its share of challenges, Byers felt that the oval was a bigger challenge – basically like linking two drag strips together and demanding a totally different kind of engine design.

“In the Pro Stock class we have to use used blocks and cylinder heads to stay within the rules for the class,” stated Mike Byers. “It makes picking the right performance parts and right combination even more critical. We have used COMP Cams® camshafts exclusively in our racing engines with nothing but excellent results.”

Byers Built Engines has worked with COMP Cams® technical advisors Chris Padgett and Dean Harvey for many years ensuring that they retain engine consistency on the track. More often than not they have used the advice of the COMP Cams® tech engineers to improve the performance of their engines and stay ahead of the competition.

Adds Steve, “We do a lot of work for the little guys. They spend money too and there are more of those racers out there than the high-dollar late model, modified & sprint teams. It is a great challenge as we are limited to 355cid with two-barrel carburetion and a maximum lift of 0.485-inch in the Roadrunner & Pro Stock class. In 2008, 12 of the 24 cars in the field were running our engines.”

Tim Krape, a veteran Pro Stock driver, ran Byer’s Built engines in '07 for 15 Feature wins at Port Royal and a limited schedule at Clinton County.

He ended up with the Port Royal Pro Stock Championship and won eight races in a row that year

Donnie was the 2007 Roadrunner Champ at Selinsgrove Speedway winning nine races that year.
Donnie won the Turkey 200 at Susquehanna in 2008 with the same engine that won that Roadrunner Championship.


Keith is known affectionately as "The Tank" at Selinsgrove Speedway. His car doesn't look the best, but it runs the best.
Keith is a farmer that doesn't really have the time to do body work during the week, so instead he duct tapes or does what he has to
so he can get it on the trailer and to the track. Keith won the Roadrunner Championship in 2004 and 2008 and has compiled
32 feature wins in four years - that's an average of eight feature wins a year.


Mike Kiehl, from Ashland, PA, was the 2008 Selinsgrove Speedway Rookie of the Year. He had a steep learning curve to overcome,
but ended up with a couple of heat race wins and ended up fourth in the Roadrunner points this year.

Training ground

With any entry-level class, there is often a learning curve required for racers as they figure out their combination and understand what it takes to win. Steve Byers notes that he prides himself on being able to guide folks around the common mistakes that can cost them races and breakage through his many years of experience.

“One of the keys to our success is that I always help break in the camshaft before I let any of my engines take to the track,” stated the elder Byers. “I want to make sure that they get what they pay for and that includes have the camshaft break in properly. If they have to take the engine with them, I make a [camshaft] “house call” and come to them to make sure that it is done correctly. I give them my cell phone number as well to make sure that should they have a problem they can call me and we’ll get things sorted out.”

Concludes Steve Byers, “We owe part of our success to COMP Cams® and their ability to work with us to provide a strong race engine that produces the needed power over the duration of a grueling race season. And every one of our cars gets a COMP Cams® sticker to show the camshaft they are running. I use nothing else.”

Sibyers20@hotmail.com
www.byersbuilt.com