TheKneeslider.com – Yesterday’s announcement of the Buell XBRR being approved for AMA Formula Xtreme racing brought a long comment by Aaron where, in his colorful way, he points out some of the bending over backwards the AMA sometimes seems to engage in when examining entries from the home team (Harley Davidson, a.k.a. Buell).
Racing is always a balancing act from a rules making standpoint, you need some kind of rules to simply establish a class of semi competitive racing machines without letting any one machine so dominate that interest declines. In an all out racing class like MotoGP, it’s actually much easier because these are race only high dollar machines and anyone going into it either has the money to compete or they don’t. If you don’t have millions of dollars to burn, perhaps we could interest you in this nice little superbike?
Making rules for production based racing is going to be really difficult because you start with what’s available in the showroom, or supposedly available in the showroom, and then try to fit in as many contestants as possible but whether you can do that depends to a large degree on whether the manufacturer made the decision to build a bike to compete in that class. The Suzuki GSX-R1000 for instance, would not exist if it wasn’t for racing, Suzuki knows it, everyone knows it, that’s why what you get at the dealer is only a few steps away from what you see on the track.
If Harley Davidson or Buell want to compete on the track, someone needs to make the decision within those organizations to build a streetable racer. Erik Buell may have made the decision but Harley has only gone along to the point where they produced the race only XBRR “based on the XB12R” and in very limited quantities that are already sold out. Formula Xtreme may have liberal rules, but sooner or later if you bend them enough you get a competitive race in appearance only, sort of like allowing some runners to take performance enhancing drugs while others have to be all natural and carry extra weight. Where do we stop?
Harley Davidson V twins are presently not competitive with the other racing twins on the market. There’s nothing wrong with it, that’s just what they decided to build. If, on the other hand, they want to go racing in classes where rules exist, build a bike and engine that conforms to those rules so it can compete in that class, then see how you do. Relying on AMA officials to fit you in somehow, gets the home team on the track but is it racing?
The quick fix? Turn the XBRR into a street machine, as some have suggested, that you and I can buy in the showroom, headlight, mufflers and all, and price it wherever Buell needs to. It’s not a perfect fix but I bet most people would go along with that, even if they have to do a lot of nodding and winking.
aaron says
well said. I really only have 3 problems with the buell, and they could be fixed for next year if anyone wants to make for proper appearences.
1) make the bodywork resemble your streetbike. an XBRR 2006 daytona 200 champion’s commerative kit could do this. just sell 400 (what supersport rules would require) xb12’s with bodywork that resembles the “designed for the banks of daytona” kit we see here. paint it orange and black, paint it with the stars and bars. paint it with a burning japanese flag. paint it with the slogan “oil tight since 2003”. I don’t really care. in the future, like ford and the gt40, you can point to this bike as that time you beat the world, way back when.
2) somehow, limit the advantage to less than double the available displacement. I mean, really – what good is it beating the suzuki and kawasaki 600s with 1340cc’s? everyone knows they build the hayabusa (1300cc) and zx-14. it’s not like le mans in 1966, where the ford 7L engines beat the 3.3L ferraris. ferrari could have built a 7L engine…
(fun fact – as I confirmed the lemans stats I came across a curious little tidbit…. did you know that a porsche 914 came 6th overall at lemans in 1970?)
3) do just sell the track ready XBRR in small numbers. sell the teams an engine kit, suspension package, bodywork, etc. have them prep an xb series buell using these items. you really expect me to believe that frame is the same as on a buell I could buy up the street? Pffft. if those frames had problems with cracking using a sub 1000cc engine during street use, don’t offer a purpose built race bike and tell me it uses the same alloys, cross section, geometry, etc.
If this bike can’t do well at daytona, any credibility harley has gained with us non-harley types may well vanish… (If one blows while leading anytime after the halfway mark, I’ll still give them credit though)
oh – one more thing – LET THE DAMN TRIUMPH 675 COMPETE!!! Isn’t that the classic daytona battle – brits vs americans?
aaron says
darn. I was hoping to keep that post short.
aaron says
OOPS – #3 should say DON’t just sell the track ready XBRR in small #’s…
Jeff Rittter says
Amen Aaron. I know the Formula Xtreme class is very liberal but there definitely seems to be some edging going on, and I’ll be rooting not so much for anyone rider to win as much as I’ll be rooting for a couple of bikes to all lose. Perhaps if Erik is serious about road racing he will convince Harley to give up the V-Rod is a drag bike idea and take that engine, let Porche once again to THEIR magic (not Harley’s magic) to get that engine back to it’s roadRacing roots and drop it in a frame worthy of it. America has no real sportbike, no matter what you Buell fans say it is not a sport bike, sport standard yes, sportbike not even close. Tell me, if I put a vtx1800 engine in a cbr frame does it make it a cbr? So does putting a freaking sportster engine in a custome frame make it a race bike?!! It’ll lose and if not blow and is able to finish, even with 1 point for the race everyone will think it’s the greatest thing. My hope is with Motoczysz. He is doing what harley isn’t able to do and KR senior wont do. Build an American Sportbike that can compete successfully in MotoGP, and get a street version of said bike to the masses. Oh, and while his materials may be foreign for the vast majority he realizes that America can’t produce the materials needed to be competive. And, here’s the kicker for the KR fans out there-Motoczysz is doing it all here in the STATES!! One last thing since this response has turned into a rant-LET THE D675 RACE!!
Jeff Rittter says
Also, could someone tell me why the Daytona 675 can’t race formula extreme? I had heard that it was eligible for supersport, or is that wrong to?
C.J. Luke says
Although I don’t believe that there is any way to justify allowing the Buel XBRR in to race against the 600 4 cylinder bikes or the 750 2 cylinder bikes, …that said, whatever their justification is, they damn sure need to let the 675 3 cylinder Triumph in.
aaron says
has anyone looked at that seat? stupidly aero efficent, that tail section is possibly the most aerodynamic in all of road racing. if 80% of motorcycle aerodynamics are rear of the riders shoulders, that thing is a monster! with a horsepower advantage, (if we take the 150 as rear wheel, or within 10 of it’s rear wheel rating) a better drive off the corners, and this little aero package, this thing should have a 5-10 mph speed advantage on a long straight.
beyond the statement that bodywork should resemble the street equipment, the rules state that the tail section cannot be more than 200mm as measured from the base of the seat. unless that’s a minibike, that seat is WAY too tall. if my sense of proportion can be trusted, that seat is also more than 36 inches off the ground. according to my SCTA landspeed rulebook, this would make this bike inelegible to run the partially streamlined class, and therefore, a full streamliner. (how fast is a streamliner? 24 years ago before windtunnels and modern engine technology, a yamaha 250 running pump gas, no blower could do 172 mph on the salt.)
regarding the daytona 675 – the rules state the displacement limit for multis is 450-600cc. great! all those 450, 500, and 550cc worldbeaters can come out and play! are there ANY sporting multis from the last ten years that aren’t 400 or 600cc?
C.J. Luke says
Aaron,
Am I wrong in believing that the 750 Ducatti’s are allowed to compete with the 600’s?
cj
aaron says
yep. liquid cooled twins, 750cc
the ama considers a “multi” more than two.
while I’m here, I might as well rant again…
remember suzuki’s bandit and 85-91 gsxr’s? oil and air cooled. you can get decent power out of these. looking at the oil cooler in the xbrr, I’m wondering if they are using cooling jets of oil in strategic locations… this is common practice in mast euro manufacturers’ “retro” engines. (ducati ds1000, bmw boxer, and the guzzi and bonneville too, i think)
If this is the case, is it still air-cooled? could you imagine a tlr1000 suzuki using their old gsxr SACS system? should only drop power by 15% – lets see… about 160 to the wheel in race trim?
hoyt says
I like the Buells as sport-streetbikes….but
…trying to race them with the apparent rule-catering is not going to win over any new riders to the brand. The current Buell fans & those leaning towards buying a Buell (’cause their old man rides a hog) will feel good; but anyone following racing probably will have that ” * ” in their mind about any success on the track.
Does the AMA need help in planning race series that will add new fans to the sport? The 200 was a sleeper last year. 1 Moto GP race in the states?
The USA needs better racing at a competitve level and casual level.
Racing would be more entertaining to me if there were more US MotoGP races, more “s” curves, less straight-aways, and lemans style racing….have different classes mixing it up together.
Create a national level series that has a local race feel. There’s plenty of riders out there that don’t care who wins, but want to see different bikes on the track and will buy bikes they want to buy—not because it “won”.
BMW’s new air-cooled boxer against Ducatis air-cooled DS engines, Guzzis and Buells, Triumphs and the Japanese OEMs. “Run-what-you-brung” national series – have better camera work to follow all the battles throughout the “race”….who cares who wins this race, just celebrate the bikes out there running around.
aaron says
hell, replace battle of the twins, bears etc with a “retro racer” class. air cooled motors, spoked rims, steel frames, and a weight penalty to offset horsepower. 275 lb singles, 325 lb twins etc. choose from a list of eligible engines, and any privately built 4 stroke engine can run. give a little money to teams that bring out something no one else has (i.e – CBX and benneli sei’s would get a small appearance fee just for the noise. bizzare engineering would get a financial push) and teams must not have factory connections!!!
IN THE NEWS….jeremy mcwilliams is reportedly set to ride a buell at daytona. do you think a guy who raced 3 years in motogp and 3 years in the 500cc world championship could be good enough? no experience with the track (just look at what that did for edwards at laguna last year) and he’s an older rider, but he’s good enough to have left lower level championships for the world series – something a few ama riders should consider…
Prester John says
Seems like the general feeling is that HD was desperate to get into road racing and coned/bullied the AMA into giving them a pass.
I would suggest the opposite. HDI could give a *** about road racing. They don’t sell 330,000 Harleys a year on road racing performance. Buell claims “bikes for the street, not the track”. HDI seems to be getting along just fine without road racing.
The AMA, however, needs HDI. Nearly all the attendees of Bike Week leave -before- the 200. MotoGP gets better TV viewership in the USA than our homegrown road racing. Attendence + viewership = sponsor/advertiser money, whether it be from manufacturers, beer companies or aftermarket suppliers. “No bucks, no Buck Rodgers”, my friends.
Sorry, but professional racing is always about money, and maybe if BMW or Triumph or Ducati or Moto Guzzi or MZ or Ural got up to ~50,000 unit sales a year in the USA, there would be the financial support for a national level professional road racing class taylored for their products. In the meantime, if Formula Xtreme isn’t your cup of tea, you can follow lots of Japanese bike action in AMA Superbike, Supersport and Superstock, go to a local WERA race, or rent a track for a day and you and your buddies go at it on any kind of hardware you like. Or maybe you could build a Truimph 675 flat tracker. Yeah, that’d show ’em!
Tom
kneeslider says
Tom, if your theory is correct, then Erik Buell, the former road racer, had no desire to build a race bike to show what his bikes could do and instead, the AMA approached him to build one. I find that a bit of a stretch, certainly not impossible, but in my opinion, very unlikely.
I think Buell built a bike, probably with some interaction with the AMA during the process and brought it out. Did the AMA know exactly what he was building and decide in advance they would approve whatever he built? Beats me. Did he build it without any interaction and just figure if he built it, they would approve it? Don’t know that either. But it’s here and it’s now legal.
I have some other thoughts on this in my post on the possiblity of a cruiser twins class. That might bring in some new fans and dollars. Will it keep the Bike Week crowd around? I doubt it, but it might attract a lot of new fans and even build a new segment of the market.
hoyt says
Prester John, one of your points about racing being about the Money is the point I was trying to make….isn’t there a need at a national level to watch racing for the actual FUN of it?…without the dollars and business end of the sport? Its about bikes and riding them…and, for the tv viewing audience and attendees at the track, its about seeing bikes ridden on track conditions.
I don’t follow NASCAR, but I’ve seen Tony Stewart comment on the affect racing other cars has on his main sport – it is a refreshing change of pace for him and other drivers. They actually have fun doing it & look forward to it.
I’m suggesting that concept be applied to motorcycle racing too…and there can be viewer,attendee, and sponsorship dollars generated if its promoted correctly. Keep the level of racing you described around since we all benefit from the R&D, but grow the sport with another series focused on variety of bikes and the overall fun of motorcycling.
aaron says
prester, the reason motogp draws higher crowds than homegrown racing?
the same reason more people watch the olympics than national championships… anybody who’s elite in the ama will either go to where the big boys play (if they have the balls) or sit at home and dominate the 2nd rung crowd.
if you put people like rossi, capirossi etc. on truly exotic bikes in a “usa homegrown” class… well I’d start to watch more than 2-3 races a year. (out of 50 or so races I’ll watch or tape per season, about 2 will be ama events.)
H-D dosen’t give a crap about racing? you mean besides the long history of dragsters, dirt track, and land speed racing? in road racing the vr1000 probably cost more to develop than anyone knows. hiring riders like duhamel, scott russell, chandler, and picotte can’t be cheap, and getting cosworth, penske, etc to do bespoke engineering can’t be affordable either…
and I like the kneeslider’s cruiser class idea, except we need to get the parallel twins in there somewhere… the new norton commando looks ready to go in production form! the thruxton can come too.
hoyt says
boxer twins, too.
DJ says
Engines are just glorified air-pumps with combustion. The more air you pump for a given temperature the more power you make.
RPM maters, and valve area maters. Engine tolerances mater (limits RPM). Number of cylinders mater. Stroke maters.
For the above reasons twins produce less horspower than 4’s for a given displacement. A 4 cylinder can spin faster because of a short stroke (piston speed is the limit) and packing 4-valves into a small cylinder wastes less space than 4 valves into a bigger cylinder.
Liquid cooling allows tighter tolerances. More RPM, higher compression ratio.
** 600cc 4 cylinders have 2X the number of cylinders as the Buell.
** 600cc 4 cylinders have 2X the number of valves as the Buell.
** 600cc 4 cylinders have 2X the number of revs as the Buell.
So the Buelll has 2X the number of CC’s to compensate for all of the above advantages.
This is fair.
The same reason why this class has liquid cooled 750cc 4-valve / cylinder machines running againsts the 600cc 4’s (see Ducati, BMW). Because it has half the cylinders, half the valves, and 50% fewer RPM’s to make horspower with.
This is fair.
This is basic physics on engine design guys!! Not a conspiracy, not bending over backwards, but a good call by the racing group to include as many different manufacturers and, style of bikes as possible.
Each style of bike will favor a different riding style. Twins carry more speed into and out of corners…
4’s blast past on the straights. This is good racing.
Moto GP has different rules for 3 cylinders, 4’s and now 5’s….. makes for good racing.
Displacement is only a small part of the equation….
kneeslider says
Good points DJ, but I wouldn’t say conspiracy and bending over backwards are quite the same thing. I think the AMA truly is trying to include a wide range of bikes and the Buell was here and saying no, it can’t run, puts them at odds with Buell and a portion of the fans; no, means back to the drawing boards until next year because the season is about to start. Tough call and I think they allowed things other than just the engine, to slip by. Good intentions but sometimes a rulebook means what it says or you then have to give extra leeway to everyone.
Small quibble, at 12.5:1 compression, the Buell is running the same as the 600 fours.
Your comment revolves around the idea of theoretical equivalence, fewer cylinders and valves so more displacement, etc. I think equivalence is more art than science. The 500cc 2 strokes were theoretically equivalent to the 990cc four strokes when MotoGP was transitioning but they couldn’t keep up. It’s more than a numbers game, not just physics and calculators.
Twins apply power differently so traction is affected, what adjustments or handicaps do you apply? Add weight, subtract weight? Twins have a narrow frontal area compared to fours, where does that come into play? There is more than displacement and valves and stroke and rpm to think about (as if that wasn’t enough). Theoretically you could have everything from singles to sixes running together but I’m not sure that would be a race, the officials and tech inspectors would be juggling some precarious variables. Just look at what you have to do to keep Ducati twins and the inline fours competitive in superbike, and those are liquid cooled 4 valve engines.
Sometimes, if you narrow the class a bit so the rules are more clear and enforceable and encourage Buell and others perhaps with a class more suited to their equipment, the racing is better for everyone. Ultimately, this becomes a philosphical issue, not a physics issue. Is carefully calculated variety better racing than classes of similar machinery? Opinions vary.
aaron says
I’m entirely with the kneeslider on this one. I’ll also give DJ’s theoretical displacement/valves/rpm idea credit. but double is still only 1200cc’s, and this displacement/cylinder math would mean the triumph would be allowed in. and now that you have a theoretically equal engine, doesn’t allowing it to use race only, one-off parts unbalance this equality?
one bike that should qualify (if the AMA treated it like buell) would be the moto guzzi swallower….I don’t know how competitive it would be, but I’d love to see it run the 200, just for the hell of it.
Doug says
keep up the great dialogue….thanks DJ, Paul, Aaron, etc.
I like the fact that this website talks about racing from a different perspective and is not over-baked on the actual race results, racers, image, etc.
At the core we’re talking about racing in terms of entertainment value (variety) and how racing ultimately translates into the bikes we can ride on the street.
hoyt says
pitting air-cooled twins against liquid-cooled in-line 4’s ** can be great racing, given the right track conditions.
How many tracks have a good balance of many “s” chicanes and corners (where it favors the torque of the v-twin) combined with some straights (where it favors the top-end of high-revving 4’s) ?
In the XBRR case, the more than double cc capacity is skewing the above cat-and-mouse paradigm of low-end torque vs. high-end hp since the Buell now has the same or more hp than the in-line 4’s without giving up its torque advantage.
What would the XBRR hp be if it was exactly twice the cc (1200 cc instead of 1340cc) ? Hmmm, 675×2. The Triumph should be allowed.
**Maybe this year, the Japanese will develop their 675 triples and the AMA will have a great platform for next year…
aaron says
with the aero package as it stands, I’d give the straightline advantage to the buell… (if my eyeball appraisal and limited experience in fluid dynamics can be trusted)
and I’m all for rules that allow close racing to equally well designed motorcycles… but if anyone (even harley) did a ground up performance a/c twin for this class it could waltz off into the far distance…
Jammer says
I’ve been following Motorcycle racing for a few years now and have to admit I stopped watching and tivoing the Honda Cup er…… Formula Extreme at the beginning of last year. Not interested in watching two factory backed (weither indirectly or not) racers battle it out for the win. It appears, by all the hype, that Honda feels that they have the most to lose if an XBRR is allowed to race. I want to see a rider that doesn’t get paid millions to ride win just once.
I would like to feel that the underdog still has a chance to win. Even if it were staged it would recapture my interest. Wasn’t the XB12R that was raced in that class last season hogged out to 1340cc’s?
aaron says
jammer-the problem is once an underdog wins on a privateer bike, he usually becomes a factory rider pretty quick! underdogs die fast, unless they keep losing. rossi was an underdog for about half a lap in his first race after he switched to a yamaha…the quickest transformation from dominant to underdog to genius ever? makes you wonder how suzuki or kaw would do with him riding….I’ve no doubt ducati would scoop a world championship with him on board (though they may go backwards with the 800cc formula) I’d rather watch a genius dominate than a hack luck out for a day. problem with the ama is there is no rider of superhuman abilities (yes, this sounds like stupid adoration of a 9 year old, but what can you do….) that makes my jaw drop nearly every time he rides.
Fred says
I think the buell xbrr is a well intentioned waste of time and money. An air cooled twin with a massive stroke will be a parts eater whether it is competitive or not and what do you prove by beating bikes with half your displacement? Ive been thinking about a cruiser class for a couple of years now. Let em chop and re-weld frames. change wheels etc. Just keep the factories out for a while and mandate that the bikes are bought off the showroom floor. Its all about developing a better product for the consumer and what better way to show off the viability of your v-twin by letting it run wide open around a track for 70 miles or so. Hey, they used to laugh at stock cars too. Can you imagine what a pack of 1400cc vtwins with racing pipes would sound like? People would probably crowd the stands just to listen to them. Plus, it would bring back the days when mechanics would work day and night, employing real ingenuity to create their machines. For what its worth, Ive raced dirt track for 15 years now and my present ride is a knight frame with a 686cc raptor engine. I bought the motor off e-bay for 1200 bucks and modified the frame and everything else accordingly. I even had to make a 2 into 1 intake manifold. On a slippery short track it is superior to anything else by a large margin. My point is that the ingenuity required kept me going for a few months and others find it interesting as well. Wouldnt it be nice to see some guys creating bikes that arent choppers? I for one would love to see race prepped road warriors, boulevards and whatever going at it regardless of the lap times.
Dom says
That may be the eventual evolution of things. There’s a lot of innovative cross pollination going on these days between chopper and race bike culture. You get things like buell, running harley engines in chassis based on streetbike design, Confederate building sportster type bikes out of carbon fiber with lightweight race parts, and even some outfits that might otherwise be termed chopper shops making their stuff with a real eye to performance think Roland Sands and Goldammer. I could see people like this getting interested in a atleast a small series, say at regular bike show stops or something, nothing heavily regulated but more equivalent to a track rental but with a real motley assortment of creative engineering blasting around with some decent photography. While we’re being overly optimistic i could see the discovery channel organising it, wouldn’t be too big a deal but it would get on the tube and get watched.
Fred says
I am hoping more to see modified showroom bikes rather than one offs. As you say, guys like Roland Sands could probably build something trackworthy using a catalogue v-twin and discovery or tlc would most likely jump right on it. I am looking to see shops modify road warriors, vtx,s or whatever more in the spirit of early nascar and form a sanctioning body with loose rules. In my opinion it would be a win win for the factories and the customers as the factories would get recognition and customers would buy a better motorcycle eventually. The funny thing is that harley would have the jump on all of them with its fxrs.