| Author | Message | ||
     Davegess |
"I cannot understand why American companies have no interest in motorcycle roadracing," Sa far as sponsorship is concerned...I saw numbers the other day from ESPN that MC racing is now second to NASCAR as the most watched form of racing in the US. Can't remember if it includes motocross or not, can't fine the reference, but it is still pretty cool that we are beating F1, Indy cars CART And NASCAR's numbers are down, maybe we can catch them and then we would see some sponsership money cut loose! | ||
| Trojan |
If I am indeed speaking from 'ignorance' then it is ignorance bron of believeing the launch hype of the XBRR last year. I read pretty much every press release and interview given at the time of the 'We're Back!' launch and no mention was made of 'The XBRR was built to be a racing Buell in multiple classes around the world'. It was launched as an FX bike, period. Given that the AMA tore itself and it's rulebook to pieces to accomodate the XBRR it now looks to the outside world like Buell has indeed cut and run. You may know all the inside facts, but millions of people worldwide read the launch press hype and followed the hullaballoo following the AMA bust up. Do you honestly think that the wider motorcycling world will see it as you do? The perception will be that Buell entered a class that had been specially tailored to suit their bike, didn't win, so never returned. That is not what I think or know, but what I think will be perceived and reported by the world's press. And when havethe press let the truth get in the way of a good story? | ||
| Reepicheep |
LOL. Now Buell destroyed the AMA  Certainly there were *no* problems with AMA professional racing until Buell decided to come in and throw their weight around and force them to completely rewrite the rule book and accept the XBRR. It was all Buells fault. AMA professional racing up to that point was a bastion of professionalism, consistency, openness, responsiveness, and success.  | ||
| Rocketsprink |
The saddest part of all of this is that Buell NEEDS to look for outside sponsors when their Parent Company makes how many Millions a quarter? Sticks how much into the "V-Rod" V&H team? But shit, what do you expect from a Company (H-D) that wants their employees to take pay cuts so H-D can , in turn, make even more $$$$. I know they're in business to make money, but God Damn it H-D!!! Stick a crowbar in your damn wallet and fund a Factory effort already!!! Oh, and for the record, no one here is M-Fing BMW, Ducati etc, etc, because this is a BUELL site!  | ||
| Bads1 |
I agree with you Rocco. Remember though that HD doesn't fund that bike alone. V&H does as well and they are a pretty huge company in the aftermarket. Maybe if Buell had some other form of Sponsorship to maybe get HD involved as well. | ||
| Davegess |
Matt, The PR guys at HD who get assigned to the Beull account sometimes get carried away. | ||
| Davegess |
If any of you guys can manage to interest a sponsor in this whole deal you would be a hero! | ||
| Jimidan |
I don't think anybody on here is dissing the troops, er, Buell or Erik, and my cut and run observation was definitely aimed at the Administration (i.e., HD). It seems so typically HD. I sincerely believe that if it were left up to BMC that Jeremy McW would be under contract today, as Anony said. BTW, thanks Anony for your measured and thoughtful response to our emotional outbursts. Some of us don't take disappointment to well. It ain't your fault man. Screw the MoCo!  Since I attend more ASRA and CSS races anyway, I will get to enjoy watching the XBRRs run regardless of what happens in AMA. You guys ought to try ASRA sometimes...it is the best kept secret in racing. jimidan | ||
| Rocketsprink |
CCS has banned the XBRR from it's Thunderbike Class. http://www.ccsracing.com/forms/2007/misc/07%20lice nse%20mailer.pdf | ||
| Blake |
"Buell builds a purpose built race only bike to the spirit (edge) of the rules specifically for FX (according to all of those wonderfully worded PR releases), but yet had no real intention of actively participating in that class themselves and were going to leave it up to privateers with little to no Factory support to do it for them " JScott, Sir, you seem to be confused. Here's the deal: The factory participated enthusiastically and provided outstanding support to the Buell dealer/privateer teams racing in FX. The factory guys were there and getting heavy duty down and dirty. They built the bike so that it would be legal in FX, not specifically for FX. Come on Matt, don't I recall earlier this year you vociferously questioning where else besides AMA FX the XBRR would race as Buell Motorcycle Company was touting it as a privateer's ready to go racing machine and shipping a bunch of them off to the UK and Europe? Meaning that you were disagreeing with their advertising the XBRR as a versatile multi-class privateer's racing machine. It did okay in Pro-Twins at Magny Cours though didn't it? ![: ]](http://www.badweatherbikers.com/buell/clipart/proud.gif) Sean, Can my local Honda dealer buy all the parts being used by the Honda factory team? The correct answer is "no." | ||
| Trojan |
Come on Matt, don't I recall earlier this year you vociferously questioning where else besides AMA FX the XBRR would race as Buell Motorcycle Company was touting it as a privateer's ready to go racing machine and shipping a bunch of them off to the UK and Europe? Meaning that you were disagreeing with their advertising the XBRR as a versatile multi-class privateer's racing machine. Blake, as far as I know there are no XBRR machines in the UK, and if there were they would not be eligible for any UK race series except Sound of Thunder, which is run at club level and dominated by ex superbike Ducatis. I was offered 'One of the unsold XBRR's that were destined for Europe' less than a month ago by Buell UK, so they can't be all sold can they? That was the point of my questioning back then, and still is. The XBRR is an FX machine, and if it is lucky enough to 'fit in' with other organisations race classes then it is a matter of luck rather than planning on Buells part. I am not dissing the efoort put into the XBRR project by the people directly involved at the factory, or by Hals or Warrs or any of the other teams. What I object to is being treated like an idiot ad fed corporate BS when it doesn't work out to plan. History is littered with race bikes that don't make it as planned, from the VR1000, Norton Cosworth, Elf Honda, NR500 Honda, Benelli Tornado, Foggy Petronas, Bimota SB8.....need I go on? Every one of those bikes would still do very well at club level even today, but it is not what they were designed to do and as such they are all seen as failures regardless of the reasons behind their relative poor performance. I would applaud Buell if they had the bollox to stand up and admit that the XBRR didn't work at what they initially planned, i.e. AMA FX racing, for whatever reason, but that they would refocus their attention tomake the bike competitive and readily available to club racers, maybe with a more directly derived XB engine that would make it eligible for production classes worldwide. How hard would that be? | ||
| José_quiñones |
They did promise a 'power reduction' kit originally to make it eligible for more classes, is this still in the works? | ||
| Rocketsprink |
I'm sure I'll get ragged on but..... Seems to me they produced a bike that isn't competitive in FX and may be on it's way to being banned from a lot of Club Race classes. Again, the red headed step child syndrome shows it's head. Hope I'm wrong. | ||
| José_quiñones |
Courtesy or Road Racer X
Read the rest by clicking on the link above. | ||
| Jscott |
"JScott, Sir, you seem to be confused. Here's the deal: The factory participated enthusiastically and provided outstanding support to the Buell dealer/privateer teams racing in FX. The factory guys were there and getting heavy duty down and dirty. They built the bike so that it would be legal in FX, not specifically for FX." Blake, you must be confused this thread concerning the 2007 AMA season!!! Why must you keep using past tense examples? Are you going to accuse Erik of being unthruthful and ignorant when he so clearly stated the the XBRR was specifically built for the FX class, just like you have of me? (Message edited by JScott on December 02, 2006) | ||
| Jimidan |
Soooo, which daddy are you going to believe...Erik or Blake? Hmmmm... Erik sez: "Are there any plans for a team to be directly run by the factory? No, no. We want to do it this way. It appears that BMC just got caught up in the excitement for the Mid-Ohio race, and made it a factory team effort. Who knows, they may get in the moment again for a few races this year. Or not. BTW, of course CCS isn't going to let XBRR's compete in Thunderbike! It is an FX bike for crissakes. Thunderbike has SV650 Suzukis in it. It can compete in Open GP or Supertwins though, and compete with Ducati Superbikes and hotted IL 600s. That is OK by me. jimidan | ||
| Rocketsprink |
CCS allows certain IL 4's in Thunderbike. What about ASRA? They have a Thunderbike class. I'm not sure if it will be allowed in there. | ||
| Jscott |
"If any of you guys can manage to interest a sponsor in this whole deal you would be a hero!" Has "Parts Unlimited" picked up another team in the absence of Ducati yet? Don't they have some Harleyesque connection to "Drag Specialties"? What about the "Arizona" tea company that sponsored Rich Cronrath's team last year? How about putting together a bike deal together with Doug Chandler and Kurtis Robert's team? | ||
| Court |
>>>But it will come. That is an accurate statement. So many words, so few facts. | ||
| Bigdaddy |
I, too, hope it comes. Makes the Daytona v. March Badness decision much easier -- for this year. | ||
| Jscott |
"So many words, so few facts." Typical Court. So few words, so little added to the discussion. Just more open ended questions. Maybe you'll remember to tell us sometime.  | ||
| Rocketsprink |
Fact is, thus far, the bike has been a flop. It's DNF'd and got it's @ss kick more often than not. That IS a fact. Still love Buells and hope they can make it work. | ||
| Elvis |
The facts seem clear and consistent: Buell designed the XBRR for dealer teams to race. Buell has and will support those dealer teams with as much technical and financial support ast they can muster. If there aren't any dealer teams willing to invest the (substantial) money required to compete at that level, Buell won't have anyone to whom they can offer their technical and financial support. Is that a fair summary? It was great that Warr's put in the effort that they did last year, but, as much as people like us enjoyed and supported their effort, there had to be a limited return on investment for them. The difficulty and expense of running a team from accross the Atlantic vs. any increase in sales they may have seen (particularly since their specific customer base probably pays less attention to AMA racing than US customers) probably makes it unlikely they will repeat such an effort. I wish Hal's would come back. Does anyone know why they dropped out? Is the money just getting to be too much now that FX is becoming a higher profile class? Does anyone here have any ideas how we could get something jump-started? Could we, through a grass-roots campaign, encourage dealers or sponsers to support an effort? I think getting past the initial hurdle is the tough part. Sponsers don't see Buell as high-profile enough to support . . . but Buell will never get high-profile if they can't find sponsers to help them get going. | ||
| Slaughter |
You will NEVER get a dealer to put up the kind of money it would take to field a team for a year. Think in terms of maybe $150K and you'd be in the ballpark of what it would cost for a low budget attempt with largely volunteer labor. By the time you pay salaries, fees, totally destroy AT LEAST TWO bikes in a season, you're really looking at a $250K commitment to put one rider and one bike anywhere near the podium in a year. For that kind of coin, you will not see a dealer campaigning in a series with nearly zero publicity either. Look at the FX coverage compared to coverage of SBK - SPEED, FSN and others Hate to sound so pessimistic but who is going to come up with money to try to unseat the likes of Hayes/Honda Bostrom/Yamaha, - or next year, Rapp/Attack Kawi. If you wanted to put together a year like the "privateer" team - Attack Kawasaki, you had better have more than $0.5M in the bank JUST to support their team, staff, travel, salaries. We've seen the teams out for testing and setup before and you'd be shocked at the money being spent OUTSIDE of actually racing | ||
| Jscott |
Good post Slaughter, although Bostrom (Ben) will only be racing in SuperStock an not in FX. | ||
| Slaughter |
J- you're right about B-Boz. I was just thinking of the level of effort seen in the season just past and what's already happening in testing for next season. That Attack Kawi team is ALWAYS out with a staff of maybe 8 - including a cook! Just for a weekend's test. | ||
| Jscott |
Dave or Court, perhaps you can forward this to the appropriate parties. http://www.sponsorshiphelp.com/ This one is having a seminar in January, maybe someone from BMC can attend. http://www.sponsorship-101.com/ (Message edited by JScott on December 02, 2006) | ||
| Rocketman |
The correct answer is "NO" Blake. But teams like Ten Kate are making their own stuff that is readily available, even for you to put on your street bike if you so wish, and the results on the track speak for themselves. I don't know what the exact rules specify for this sort of stuff and its use in superbike racing, but the stuff I saw at the NEC show in November looked like works of art. It's affordable and I'd like to think that the figures quoted often on BadWeB for 'works' or 'factory' machines competing in US racing is ridiculous in comparison to some Euro supported efforts, such as Ten Kate, Crescent Suzuki, etc etc. Rocket | ||
| Anonymous |
Jose..."They did promise a 'power reduction' kit originally to make it eligible for more classes, is this still in the works?" Perhaps now for Moto ST. An investigation is underway. It's one of things being worked on over the off season. Sprink... "CCS has banned the XBRR from it's Thunderbike Class." Removed from eligibility for next year would be a more accurate statement.  There's plenty of tweaked R's running (and winning) in the class, and with RR chassis parts available to allow the racer's to easily make weight based on their respective engine configurations, the work on the RR payoffs for them as well. The RR is legal in other classes. | ||
| Rocketsprink |
Anon. I know. I get my @ss kicked by a lot of XBR's every race weekend! Actually looking for one to race! But unless the displacement is raised in the rules (1210cc for now) OR the RR comes down in displacement, it will remained banned..er, huh, excluded. |
