Here we go again..

[fzr400]

....another snore fest. Didn't they learn from the 883 series way back when? HARLEYS ARE NOT ROADRACE MACHINES! If they want to go roadracing, they should build a roadracer.

Oh wait they did.

And won.

And then killed it.

F Harley

<end rant>

http://www.roadracingworld.com/news/art ... icle=39640

[zx11Maestro]

Ya know, I gotta admit, put lights and a side stand on it, and I might even ride it on the street. Watching them race...not so much.

[buba_zanetti]

They already make it with lights and kickstand...
Its just a solo tail and exhaust.

Anyway, the idea is marketing. Its like the Academy award for best passage in a screen play. None of us care how well written the stage directions are, its an industry thing. This series is for racers, people who are in the industry. It's a Vance/Hines thing to make some dough. H-D's website makes no mention of it. It's got marketing potenial. The majority of riders ride H-D. By giving them an H-D series they might get some through the gatE (notice all the events are back east and mid-west). It's a good move when not viewed in the context of a race fan. Spectating will be boring, but the parity of the bikes might make it close.

And it will sell race kits for Vance, even if it only lasts one year... like the Thruxton cup in AHRMA... or the Ninja 250 cup in WSMC...

I would race one myself, if someone offered me the ride. But I can get a race winning sidecar for what a XR1200 with race kit would got for, and I bet my lap times would be much quicker on the sidecar.
The kitted race bike is gorgeous though, regardless of it's track-worthiness. Best looking Harley I've ever seen.
b-z-

[zx11Maestro]

They already make it with lights and kickstand...
Its just a solo tail and exhaust.

True, I guess it is the different pipe and belly pan that make it look more like a bike i would ride



Here is another one that actually looks nice that has been cafe'd

[RIFLEMAN]

I rode one and I really liked it. Did run out of steam at about 110,but was real agile. Would make a great city bike.
I liked the 883 series and saw some great racing during it and it was cheap for the competitors. This new series is only a 5 race deal. Too bad.

[fzr400]

Here's some more from Soup. He makes a couple interesting points. I guess we'll see soon enough how it all works out.

http://www.superbikeplanet.com/2010/Mar/100304dtwinsports.htm

The AMA "H-D SuperTwins" class, a one-make racing series using 883 Harley Sportsters that was attached to the series in the 1990s, will make a return of sorts this year with the announcement of the Vance & Hines XR1200 Series. The 1200 Series will race a limited schedule in 2010, starting at Elkhart Lake in June.

The Vance & Hines XR1200 Series, as a concept, has been floating around the DMG Superbike series since the DMG takeover was announced. Ousted DMG head Roger Edmondson was a supporter of a Harley spec series being resurrected, citing that it was difficult to ignore the millions of fans that Harley-Davidson had in the US and not try to draw them into racing. This is exactly what he said the last time he offered a Harley-spec class; Edmondson and the late Pat Murphy started the original Twinsports class in 1989-90.

The '90s version of AMA H-D SuperTwins (it was originally called "US Twin Sports" when the series debuted in 1990) was, for a time, a red-hot class full of talent and many small dealer-operated teams.

While roadracing a Sportster is sort of an 'answering a question no one asked' proposition, like most things Harley-Davidson, they can offer racing entertainment—perverse it may be—when pitted against each other.

An impressive group of racers made some of their first professional laps on a crude, wobbly and smoking 883, riders such as Eric and Ben Bostrom, Mike Hale, Tripp Nobles, Aaron Yates, Jake Zemke, the Waite brothers and many more. The racing was, for a time, fierce, and the class was quite popular with riders and some fans. It brought in cross-over riders as well with dirt trackers like the late Ricky Graham, Kevin Atherton, Randy Texter and other clay oval pilots twisting the fat grip on an 883.

At first.

The way that many revisionists "prefer to look at it" is that the old 883 US Twin Sports class was a fireball of a racing series where the action was heavy and grids were full. This was, in fact, the how the class looked when it debuted and that level of participation was maintained for a few years.

In 1997, just before the class threw a rod and started spewing vital fluids, it looked nothing like that.

For whatever reason, AMA 883 Twin Sports, (aka Supertwins), a Harley-Davidson spec class much like the Vance & Hines XR1200 Series, died a slow, but unavoidable, death. In the end, there were few entries and the glow was gone in part due to the controversyby of too many red flags and technical inspection/rule-book battles. What's more, Yates, the Bostroms and many of the others who drew first blood in the 883 class had moved on to full time Supersport or Superbike rides.

The Vance & Hines XR1200 series does bring two immediate positives to the DMG racing weekend. First, it will be a low-cost way to race. Currently, a Graves Yamaha R6 Supersport or Sport Bike-spec racer costs between $40-$60,000 each ...
The people behind the Vance & Hines XR1200 series in 2010 are assuredly motivated by the same goal that Edmondson and company had when they debuted the 883 class in 1990. When the Harley-Davidson Twinsports class was designed and debuted, it did so with the hope of attracting the Harley-Davidson masses to roadracing. The sanctioning body hoped that HOG members would buy tickets to see a grid full of their motorcycles.

That hope ended in failure.

The Harley masses never came, never really cared. Harley-Davidson did an admirable job of trying to build the class; celebrated Harley bike designer Willie G Davidson, and his son, Bill Jr, came to many races, but the faithful never followed them in any real numbers. If they had, maybe the class would not have died. Is the current Harley-Davidson rider culture more accepting of roadracing? We'll soon find out.

The Vance & Hines XR1200 series does bring two immediate positives to the DMG racing weekend. First, it will be a low-cost way to race. Currently, a Graves Yamaha R6 Supersport or Daytona Sport Bike-spec racer costs between $40-$60,000 each, and while there are certainly cheaper ways to enter and race on the DMG weekend in those two classes, running at the front—when it matters, on the last lap—costs ten of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars. DMG supposedly plans to run the Vance & Hines XR1200 series as a true spec class with very few modifications allowed outside of the VHR race kit. If true, this should keep costs down.

Second, the Vance & Hines XR1200 series brings Terry Vance back to roadracing. While he hasn't been involved in roadracing since the demise of the Vance and Hines Ducati team, Terry Vance remains a serious power in the motorcycle industry. Vance's prowess as a rider and businessman is still the stuff of legend. A business started with a desk and a welding machine, Vance and Hines grew to be a global sales powerhouse and today Vance remains someone who can make very difficult objectives happen in one phone call. Having him even slightly on the side of DMG will net them respect that it would have taken them years to earn.

Due to the global economic slowdown there are many riders and teams looking for an opportunity in racing. While roadracing a bike like a 1200 Sportster may be a question looking for an answer, for a lot of unemployed riders, smaller sponsors and shuttered teams, this class may very well be the answer.

ENDS

[RIFLEMAN]

One thing that article didn't mention was the fact that the 883s were raced on pavement and dirt like the old Grand National series. One of the greatest race days I ever spent was at Pomona when I watched Jay Springsteen win the road course,win the 883 dirt track,then jam up the XR750 race while he had a butt then proceed to win the main.
The HD faithful will never fill the stands at a road race. Their Outlaw selves think that kind of riding is crazy. They have been pretty present at the drags now that the rules have made the VRod competetive.
The idea that 60k has to be expended to be able to compete AT THE BOTTOM RUNG is obscene and had it not been for 883 racing, the careers of the Boz' and Zemkes of the world might be very different today.
I actually went to these races and it was the 2 wheel equivilant of Formula Ford racing. Even the dirt track version ran only about a second slower than the XR750 and when I talked to Springer about the bike he said they were a very forgiving and inexpensive learning tool for anyone that wanted to learn how to dirt track.
Alot of this is moot,of course. New talent isn't going to be found in a 5 race series thats limited to the Midwest and East Coast.
I guess I'm so enamored of it because I'm old enough to remember when anyone could roll into a Yamaha dealer,buy a TZ750 for about twice the cost of a average streetbike and try his hand at roadracing.
Days when even the best riders in the world were traveresing their respective continents in clapped out vans trying to make it to the next gig. I'd like to see guys like that again,racing for the sheer love of it instead of wanting and needing the corporate tit to survive.
Guess I'm just an old romantic.............