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Court
| | Posted on Sunday, August 29, 2010 - 10:39 am: | 
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......the dealers were told never to run a Buell name plate on a flat track again.
Oddly reminiscent of a meeting I sat in . . . in Milwaukee and was told . . . ."Buell will have something the Harley-Davidson doesn't over my dead body".
That's come to pass . . . . . we're good to go.
Time loves a hero. |
Steve_a
| | Posted on Sunday, August 29, 2010 - 01:42 pm: |
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I watched Ron Wood's 660 Rotax single threaten to win at Ascot many years ago -- a track re-grading before the final slowed it down slightly so it only finished 8th or so. Within weeks singles were banned from Expert Nationals in half miles and miles. Harley's dominance in dirt track comes from devotion, development, AND rules manipulation. Note that not all of that is because of company pressure; the sanctioning body and the many racers with investments in XR hardware also put substantial pressure to not disturb the status quo. |
Trojan
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - 08:30 am: |
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Now that Bill Werner and his kawasaki 'Ninja 650' team have won a GNC race at the Indy Mile I suppose it is only a matter of time before the AMA thinks up some way to ban lime green bikes from flat track races to protect H-D 
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Crusty
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - 03:48 pm: |
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You know, the bikes this year are two seconds a lap slower than they were 10 years ago.Maybe, in the interest of fairness, the AMA should let the XR-750s run unrestricted, and let the other twins run up to 1,000 cc displacement. I mean, wouldn't a 33-1/3 % increase in displacement be enough to romp all over the antiquated XRs?
Oh wait; they tried that. The XR still kicked ass.
If the XR 750 wasn't being hobbled so much, the other twins wouldn't have a prayer. |
Imonabuss
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - 06:21 pm: |
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Sorry, Crusty, the Honda RS-750's crushed the XR's pointy little cylinder heads until the Hondas were restricted to death. Heck privateers on these were beating the factory H-Ds. It takes a lot of digging to actually track down the facts of what all happened, but worth it unless you don't want to to stop drinking the orange and black coolaid. |
Slaughter
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - 06:46 pm: |
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Don't remember WHO first said it but we're witnessing the "Special Olympics" of motorsport.
(and that's not to take ANYTHING away from the legitimate Special Olympics... so don't mount your high horses) |
Crusty
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - 07:40 pm: |
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Sorry, Crusty, the Honda RS-750's crushed the XR's pointy little cylinder heads until the Hondas were restricted to death.
They did initially; and it took Bill Werner and Scotty Parker years to develop the extra few horsepower and the extra will to win to catch up to Bubba Shobert and the RS 750, but they did catch up. I was at Indy in 1988 when Parker finally beat Shobert on a Mile. The RS was a faster bike, even then, but Parker elevated himself an extra level to take the win.
And wasn't the RS found to be underweight the following Mile? (not that Honda would cheat; that would be like saying that Suzuki was putting special cranks in their Superbikes) |
Crusty
| | Posted on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 - 07:41 pm: |
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Oh, BTW; I don't drink Orange and Black Kool-Aid.
Lately, my beverage of choice comes from Mandello del Lario. |
46champ
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 01, 2010 - 12:00 am: |
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Everybody talks about the Honda's being restricted to death is not the whole story. The RS and the XR were restricted the same amount ie the restrictors were the same size.
The proposed rule change for next year to 750 max I feel is a huge mistake on the part of the rule making body. The other bikes are finally just getting into the mains if they get too successful they just have to remove the restrictors from the XR's. |
Trojan
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 01, 2010 - 04:33 am: |
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Restricting the bikes to 750 won't make any difference to the Kawasaki at 650cc, so how will the AMA try to ban that if it continues to win races?
Mabe they should just be brave and 'retire' the XR750 in order to open up the sport to a whole raft of new engines and competitors?
Oh wait, was that a pig I saw fly past? |
Crusty
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 01, 2010 - 06:08 am: |
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Restricting the bikes to 750 won't make any difference to the Kawasaki at 650cc, so how will the AMA try to ban that if it continues to win races?
Mabe they should just be brave and 'retire' the XR750 in order to open up the sport to a whole raft of new engines and competitors?
I thought that's what they've been doing. There are BMWs, Triumphs, Suzukis, Aprilias and Ducatis out there as well as XR750s. They've choked the XR to the point that the other bikes can have a chance at being competitive. Fer crissakes, they're turning 39 second laps on a Mile! the bikes were faster 30 years ago!
Maybe the AMA should require box stock street bikes, complete with lights and turn signals? That would be fair, don't you think? |
Trojan
| | Posted on Wednesday, September 01, 2010 - 06:43 am: |
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I thought that's what they've been doing. There are BMWs, Triumphs, Suzukis, Aprilias and Ducatis out there as well as XR750s. They've choked the XR to the point that the other bikes can have a chance at being competitive. Fer crissakes, they're turning 39 second laps on a Mile! the bikes were faster 30 years ago!
The bikes you mention have all been outlawed by the AMA in order to keep the ageing Xr750 competitive next year as all of them are over 750cc!
The reason that the XR750 is still competitive is that they are the ONLY factory flat track engine developed over many years specifically for this sport. None of the other factories have given flat track racing a second thought or spent any money on it other than Honda, and when they did they won! I'm sure that if Aprilia, Ducati or Honda really wanted to develop a 750 motor to beat the old XR750 they could do so quite easily these days (the motor in Pegram's Ducati was a street spec Hypermotard after all and I doubt if the winning Ducati or Kawasaki have anything like rocket science inside the cases!).
The fact is that none of the factories outside of H-D really cares about flat track racing because it won't sell street bikes and has a relatively small following compared to other motorcycle sport worldwide. Therefore the job of developing the BMW (Rotax), Triumph, Aprilia and Ducati has been left to privateer teams and builders with a fraction of the resources that H-D has put into the XR750 over the years. The AMA also knows full well that very few factories produce a 750cc motor cuitable for flat track racing (conveniently for the new rules perhaps?) which means that people have litle choice other than to stick with the tried and tested Xr750.
I'm sure that if international road racing had employed the same restrictive rules strategy as the AMA Flat track organisers, we's still see Valentino Rossi racing a Manx Norton! |
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