A Battle of the Brands

A Battle OF THE Brands

The Yavapai Downs Mile: A win for Ducati and an all-time record for competition

ALLAN GIRDLER

RACE WATCH

FLATTRACK.COM HAS A FORUM PAGE ON ITS site dedicated to Friday afternoon experts more than ready to tell you what's coming next. During the week before the AMA Pro Grand National Championship Yavapai Downs Mile at Prescott Valley, Arizona, first round of the 2010 Twins series, the topic was: How many makes of motorcycle will qualify for the main event?

No kidding, and how long has it been since anyone wondered about thatl As in, for 10 years or more, Harley's evergreen XR-750 has been the only contender on the track, with the occasional contrarian Aprilia, Ducati or Suzuki entrant pretending to be a good sport.

But the times are changing, as the old song says. New rules, new sanctioning body, new track, even. Better than that, no matter what the economy's doing, other brands have appeared where H-D has cut back, speaking of how long has it been.

Enough suspense: Cutting to the bottom line, winner of ¿he GNC series opener was 2000 class champ Joe Kopp, riding a Ducati entered by the Lloyd Brothers and Latus H-D. Next, there were six (with some allowance for politics and marketing) different brands of motorcycles in the main event, which must be an all-time record.

Now, the back story.

Harley-Davidson XR-750s have won every GNC mile since 1998, the point at which Honda's abandoned 750 was no longer practical. That's a run of 134 straight victories, speaking of records.

No one, not even H-D, really liked the idea of one make winning every time. Efforts were made, first with a class for lOOOcc production engines,

which was supposed to blend into GNC when the bikes were competitive, but that didn't happen. So the rules were kept in place and Harleys dominated the podium.

Next, of all things, The Recession.

No industry has been hit harder than new motorcycle sales. Harley and Suzuki were the only factories supporting dirt-track. Suzuki cut back, which was sad but not vital. Harley-Davidson scaled back more of a larger program, cutting loose most of its team, Kenny Coolbeth Jr. being the exception.

With all due respect, the guys who'd ridden Aprilias, Ducatis and Suzukis in the Twins class were good but not that good. Plus, the AMA had sold the GNC program to the Daytona

Motorsports Group, and DMG did research and juggled the specs, as in smaller restrictors for Harley's XR engine, some allowance for tuning and displacement and, best of all, while the 450cc Singles must run stock MX frames, the Twins are framers—that is, if you put your Suzuki 650 or Ducati 1000 in a custom, race-based frame, it's still a Suzuki or Ducati.

And?

And there's Joe Kopp, signed for two top professional teams, with a Ducati engine in a VMC frame that puts the long V-Twin where it will improve weight distribution and so forth.

There's Bryan Smith, a top contender on Harleys but now riding a Kawasaki Twin in a frame built by Bill Werner, winningest tuner in GNC history, with Jay Springsteen, three-time national > champion, as coach.

"Harley-Davidson XR-750s have won every GNC mile since 1998, the point at which Honda's abandoned 750 was no longer practical. That's a run of 134 straight victories..."

There's Matt Weidman, a promising Expert signed by Ron Wood. Wood built and fielded winning Harley XRs, as well as Norton Twins and Rotaxpowered Singles that beat the Twins, and his work-of-art BMW 650 has graced these pages.

For color, Luke Gough, a talented young Australian, arrived with a Suzuki engine in a frame he built himself. Why the Suzuki? "You can get one anyplace, and they're cheap. I got this one for $600."

And there was Shawn Baer, a national number holder who's not yet won a national race. He's ridden Harleys, but this season teamed with Bonneville Performance, makers of speed and sport equipment for the current Triumphs.

Triumph, of course, made its reputation in the U.S. on the track, but although some of the American employees wish otherwise, the home office has declined support. The guys on the team know how to race and, again, they did their own frame and tuning, and thanks to the availability of brakes and> wheels and suspension and so forth, they can be competitive on a budget.

To illustrate the point made earlier, that tuning and talent count as much as the name on the tank, fast-qualifier was Sammy Halbert aboard the family XR-750 at 40.407 seconds, followed by Smith on the Kawasaki (40.533), Kopp and Ducati (40.727), and Gough on the homemade Suzuki (40.741). Call it three top picks and one dark horse, all within the same quarter second.

Baer and the Triumph's best was 41.944 seconds, while, as the clincher, the slowest Harley, ridden by a regional Expert, turned 44.214. Another regional rider, with a stock-frame Ducati, was last qualifier at 45.685.

Adding to the mix, Yavapai Downs is at the Yavapai County fairgrounds in Prescott Valley, in the recreational mountains, 90-plus miles north of Phoenix. The mile track is home to horses, with a mountain-bike course inside the oval, while the locals race super modifieds and other cars on a small oval next door. DMG and chief dirt-track officer Mike Kidd are working to expand the GNC program, and Prescott Valley likes racing, so the deal was made.

It paid off. The event drew the usual Big Twin Harley crowd, along with an equal group of sportbikes and touring bikes and families in cars and trucks. The parking lot was full, the stands were full—3000 paid spectators is the estimate—and when the security guys were asked how this compares with the horsey set, they rolled their eyes; no comparison. (The track offers off-site betting, and some of the folks were there for the Kentucky Derby. "I didn't know about all these motorcycles," said one. But no one seemed to mind, just as the ladies fighting cancer had no worry about the Hells Angels booth, and vice versa.)

"The parking lot was full, the stands were full.. .and when the security guys were asked how this compares with the horsey set, they rolled their eyes; no comparison."

The track itself is long and narrow, dusty and abrasive, and 5400 feet above sea level, all mitigating factors. And because none of the racers had been there before, surely there were a few bad guesses in gearing and suspension and jetting. Oh, and also maybe due to economics, there were only 27 Experts in the Twins class, so they ran three heats and one last-chance qualifier.

There were 17 Harleys, three Suzukis, two Ducatis, and one each KTM, Triumph, Kawasaki, Aprilia and BMW. In case anyone's seen a program or the official results, the listed Honda was a Harley, the Wood-Rotax is powered by BMW and the plain Rotax has an Aprilia engine; one assumes the sponsor influences the decal.

Early on, the day looked to be in Halbert's pocket. He won the fastest heat, followed by Kopp, Gough and Brandon Robinson—three makes in contention. Next heat, four Harleys. In the third, it was three Harleys and the BMW, while Smith, who'd been in the lead pack until he went wide, took the LCQ.

Six makes in the main—oh, my, not even the pre-race pundits dared to predict that, nor was there much griping at the posting of the qualifiers. As Chris Carr said before the heats, the Harleys have 3 percent less airflow this season, and a good tuner—for example, Carr's wizard Kenny Tolbert—can make that up no sweat.

And now, the race: Kopp got the jump, but Halbert got past, opened a gap and kept the lead for 12 laps as the others got into line while the officials became worried about tire wear, so they cut the race from 25 to 20 laps... but wait! Kopp is closing the gap! The crowd was on its collective feet as Kopp took the high line and was close down the backstretch of the last lap, got the drive and the draft and edged past Halbert to win by 0.025 seconds. Wow! The crowd went wild, no matter what patch was on the jacket.

What happened? Kopp said later he worked on the best lines but was inspired when he realized Halbert was coming closer, so he gave his all and counted on surprise—that is, he made his move when Halbert would have no chance to strike back. Halbert, in turn, took the loss like the good sport he is. He'd been in a safe lead, he said on the podium, so he reckoned to conserve his rear tire and eased up. (Kopp's tire was destroyed by the finish.)

"I was riding at 95 percent," Halbert said ruefully. "Joe was riding at 100 percent. I won't make that mistake again."

As for the others, the word we need here is "racing." Coolbeth was third, followed by six other Harleys. Gough, the bargain-seeking underdog, was a creditable 10th. Smith's Kawasaki stopped dead after five laps, felled by a mysterious electrical glitch; at this writing, Werner had the engine on the dyno, where it was running like clockwork.

Weidman's BMW? Lost the master link and coasted to a halt. Wood suspects the chain rubbed something the wrong way.

More serious, perhaps, is that although BMW appreciates Wood's efforts, they're still charging him for parts. Neither is Ducati or Aprilia or Triumph backing those makes or teams. Kawasaki and Monster are funding Werner and Springsteen, thank goodness.

As another short-term factor, the rules inadvertently allowed Ducati tuners to put their restrictors—engines larger than 750cc are required to choke the intakes—where they don't restrict. This was within the letter but not the spirit, so team partner David Lloyd, aided by none other than Werner, will rework the intakes so they're actually restricted, not that less power will spoil the fun.

What it all means, in sum, is that not even the optimists on the website knew how good this season will be, or how much the sport will be improved. O