Return of the Native.
Return of the native.
DAYTONA '83
The Battle of the Twins goes to Jay Springsteen and the Harley XR1000.
Allan Girdler
Officially Daytona's Battle of the Twins took place on Friday, and Jay Springsteen and the GP version of the XR1000 gave Harley-Davidson its first win at the speedway since 1969.
Actually, the battle took place during Thursday practice. Springsteen came into the infield hairpin in front of Jim Adamo, two-time BOTT champion and rider of a Reno Leone-tuned Ducati. Adamo, Leone and Ducati have won the Daytona Twins race twice, while racking up 13 BOTT victories in 19 starts and were obviously the team to beat.
Springsteen and Adamo swept around the turn and on the way out Adamo gassed it, getting his front wheel even with the Harley’s back wheel. Springsteen looked down. His right arm dropped, so far and fast that the motion could be seen from the other side of the track.
The Harley jumped ahead, gaining a length each second until it was out of sight. Springsteen never looked back again.
One could say Springsteen and Harley-Davidson have instead been looking forward to this for a long time. The racing department’s enthusiasm for the production XR1000 may have begun with the knowledge that a high performance Sportster would put them back into road racing on an equal footing with the other small factories if not the Big Four and their Big Fours.
Harley’s racing XR1000 isn't the usual sort of works bike. Builder Carroll Resweber (yes, the four-time national champion Resweber) came up with a frame that was part production XR750, part 1972 Cal Rayborn XR road racer and part what's been learned since 1972. The frame was given road race dimensions, as in steering head angle, with rear shocks from Moto-X Fox and forks by Marzocchi, into which the builders put Harley's patentpending anti-dive, as seen on the FXRT. Brakes are three Brembo discs, and Jay’s bike ran the race with a Goodyear slick on the back, a Michelin slick in front.
The engine is a similar combination: XR1000 cases, barrels and heads, naturally handworked and carefully assembled. Builder Don Habermehl used camshafts from the XR750 catalog, a pair of monstrous 40mm curbs, the dirt-track-proven Dyna dual ignition and modified XR750 exhaust pipes.
Team chief Dick O'Brien says the major change was moving the oil tank in front of the engine for better cooling. O'Brien cheerfully says nobody had the nerve to actually weigh the bike, but that it’s probably close to 385 lb. ready to race. The engine got lots of dyno time, where it recorded 106 bhp and 85 (!) lb.-ft. of torque. The week before Daytona the team went to Talledega for the racer’s first time on a track. Springsteen was timed through the traps at 167 mph and enjoyed himself hugely.
The BOTT race was more like a demonstration. Adamo is no slouch, Leone knows Ducatis, they qualified both a 600 Pantah and the older 900, yet when the flag dropped Springsteen swept past the 900 on the second lap and pulled away, to the tune of a 26-sec. lead at the finish of the 13-lap race. No contest, in other words.
Leone expects things won't be quite so one-side when the series moves to tighter tracks. O'Brien hopes the factory will invest in the BOTT despite its not counting toward the Camel Pro/AMA Grand National championship. He reckons the team could build an XR-based Formula One bike that would earn national points, but that would take money. Meanwhile, the Harley team is back in road racing.
After the heat races Adamo was quoted as saying Springsteen got into trouble that only his dirt track training could get him out of.
Funny. The Europeans used to say that about Kenny Roberts.
