| Author | Message | ||
     Brumbear |
Did EBR get only 2 points this season in WSB? I am not sure I am reading the standing correctly? I can't seem to find much on wsk except that Kawasaki has first and last place so is WSB more rider or machine??? | ||
| Sparky |
Yes, EBR has 2 points so far in their first year campaigning street bikes modified for competition per the rules that apply this year. Don't forget that EBR's competition has been doing this for years developing their machines and recruiting the top riders, whereas EBR is in the first stages of developing a street bike into a racer and is using riders specifically to develop the bike into dependable, competitive machines. All this takes time. Have faith and GO EBR! | ||
| Dennis_c |
Also some of the other bikes cost $450,000 ea. EBR cost $60,000 ea. | ||
| Classax |
^^^^ This ^^^^^ | ||
| Xb984r |
Say the top ones do cost $450,000 (I have my doubts about that one) The EBR's are finishing behind the EVO's | ||
| Court |
>>>I have my doubts about that one I agree with you . . . . I'll bet its closer to $750,000 | ||
| Bads1 |
Sorry Court but No | ||
| Court |
Tough to say . . . . I haves the original budget that was done for EBR racing . . . and, even if you left the bikes home, you better bring tons of $$$. A mere million won't get you to the 3rd race of the season. I'm sure others here have prepared pro race budgets and I/d be interested in hearing your thoughts. One of the anomalies . . in the EBR world . . was Road America. No air fares and about as cheap a place as you'll find on planet earth to hang out for 4 days.  Like I say . . . this was the 2010 season and it didn't included the $300,000 it'd cost to move . . say from Phillip Island to Aragon. Anybody wanna take a crack at Donnington to Sepang in 10 days. Like I said . . . tough call and every racer has a bench racer story of how much they spent or how cheaply their neighbor's cousin's roommate pulled it off. But . . .when it's time to really go racing . . . it's big business.
Face it . . . .at the "internet chat room" level . . . . you can have and hold about any frickin' opinion you want. I look at it from a business perspective having actually been involed in the budgeting and planning. Perhaps Honda is lying and the bikes are much cheaper,. | ||
| Bads1 |
hats MotoGP not WSB where the bikes are capped at 250 euro. We are talking what an individual bike costs. Now Moto GP... millions for a bike | ||
| Davegess |
I'm buying Courts numbers, maybe 20% high but not off by much. Nothing on those grids is closer to stock than the EBRs | ||
| Classax |
Except for the Bimotas. They sell what they race. Front fairings and fairing stays change for the road and that's about it. Other than that I agree the $60K EBRs are far closer to stock than the $250k factory EVOs or the $450k factory superbikes. The fact that they keep making the grid is a testament to the design and riders. | ||
| Buellmojo |
Field a football team for a dollar a player...brag on how good your team is at the school yard... throw them out there against an NFL Team...let me know how that turns out. | ||
| Rocket_in_uk |
GBmoto BSB team feature. The real cost of racing. Ever wondered just how much it costs to put a two-bike team at the sharp end of a BSB grid? Mark Smith Halverson is the team principal at GBmoto Racing. For 2014 they’ll be fielding a Kawasaki backed two-bike team in BSB with James Ellison and Chris Walker. Mark handles the finances of the team; he costs everything, finds the money and pays the team’s way. http://www.superbike.co.uk/race-news/gbmoto-bsb-te am-feature-the-real-cost-of-racing/ A very interesting assessment and good read... Rocket in England | ||
| Classax |
I think a better analogy is practice squad vs pro bowlers. The guys who make the practice squad are far better athletes than even the best of college players and super human compare to the average Joe. They form the feed stock for NFL teams with 5 figure contracts. The guys who make the pro bowl are multi million dollar freaks of nature on the bleeding edge of peak performance with at least a season or more of development competing against other NFL top talent. Very few rookies ever make it to Hawaii no matter how talented or gifted they are. The NFL is a whole other level that takes time to conquer. Many rookies don't ever start their first season and more than a few never actually play in a game. The ones that do start often get "schooled" by the vets but learn quickly. Great article Rocket! | ||
| Hybridmomentspass |
Good for EBR to race a bike that's closer to stock than any other bike in the field, it really paid off in all of those DNF and DNS! | ||
| Hybridmomentspass |
I didnt realize racing was about "bring the most stock bike and not make superpole etc" Racing is about winning, or at least performing well, I get people are trying to put a positive spin on this season, and I am thrilled that they took the challenge to enter, but it was pathetic. Blame the Italian team all you want, doesnt matter, it was a sorry season | ||
| Classax |
No denying that... the season was horrid.  But again, Erik stated he wanted to see how far he could get with what they sell to the public,  and the answer is..... on a truly great day, the very back of the grid.  Lesson learned.  The question is where do they plan to go from here.  | ||
| Reepicheep |
Lots of mistakes made, but I personally am still impressed that you can take an off the showroom floor superbike, make fairly limited changes to it, and do well enough to be within a few seconds per lap of a WSBK winner. But I'm not their target market. | ||
| Hughlysses |
The question is where do they plan to go from here That is a $1M question isn't it? With all WSBK bikes running EVO class next year, that means any improvements will have to be included in the stock 2015 EBR 1190RX, which is likely under production already. I guess we'll see if EBR has anything up their sleeve at the AIMExpo next month. | ||
| Classax |
I thought the EVO rules were out and its superbike lite for next year in WSBK. If HERO is willing to foot the bill they should be in a better position next year, as they are already trying to climb into superpole now. But who knows! The Kawi H2 may be a superbike or the new R1 may blow the whole thing wide open. but I personally am still impressed that you can take an off the showroom floor superbike, make fairly limited changes to it, and do well enough to be within a few seconds per lap of a WSBK winner. That I believe was the goal and the selling point of these bikes! No one besides Bimota can use that as a tag line. EBR needs to focus on customer support at AIM and roll out new products like exhaust and ECU's and such. The focus needs to be on SELLING bikes now. Just my opinion. | ||
| Hughlysses |
I thought the EVO rules were out and its superbike lite for next year in WSBK. I think that's correct, but the 1190RX's were unable to match the performance of the EVO bikes running this year. Since they'll all be running EVO next year, the only real way to add horsepower is to incorporate changes in the production engines, right? I believe it was also posted in the last few days that the minimum production requirements have been greatly reduced. That would seem to make it possible for EBR to introduce something like a limited run 1190RX-R (or whatever) for the 2015 model year with an ultra-short stroke engine or something similar that would be more competitive in WSBK. I imagine that all depends on how much cash Hero is willing to spend. | ||
| Court |
>>>EBR needs to focus on customer support at AIM and roll out new products like exhaust and ECU's and such. The focus needs to be on SELLING bikes now. ' I'd share that opinion. The bikes are awesome . . . but then, like Reep, I am not their target market at this point. I do however think they need to bring a lot of focus to:
Long-term . . . Nothing happens without sales . . . . no one can "engineer" their way out of a poor business model. | ||
| Reepicheep |
Amen to that. I try and be nice about it, but every time I look to buy something from EBR, I look at the trash and trinkets lineup and think "Oh geesh, I thought we got past that when we escaped Harley". (If they are a huge profit center, then maybe it's a necessary evil that helps the rest of us, but if we are selling a little bit of our corporate soul lets make sure we get a hell of a return on it...) | ||
| Buellmojo |
I enjoy the cost discussions, and the comparisons...EBR Team, what we feel like reporting as cost...all other teams, total cost to the cent when tallied...seems to be somewhat of an unfair comparison to me? How is any of this relevant anyway, or in what way is this an accomplishment given the poor results? Sure they made the races, but wasn't the EVO bikes added to fill the starting grid in the first place, otherwise the field was down on participants? By the way, $40,000 plus reported is NOT a small amount of upgrades from the showroom models. In a true (fair) numbers comparison, I think the costs are much closer than what is actually being reported. Why is there always so much forced drama (always a victim)... this existed as Buell, and now it shows up again as EBR? In my opinion, this never has, and never will, help in any way... Stop making excuses, stop pointing fingers, move forward, and back up what you claim! | ||
| Classax |
Dude $40K will only buy you a set of brake calibers on the factory EVO bikes and that's it. It wouldn't buy you the full set on any of the Superbikes! It would just barley get you a RSV4 race engine. Considering the rear shock alone is $1.6K and the fronts forks are nearly $14k and we still haven't bought the race grade radiators, pistons, rings, swing arm pivot, rearsets, lite weight wheels, rotors, stator, clutch actuator, brake calipers, steel braided lines, 520 chain conversion, lite weight subframe and ... oh wait all that is floor stock on the EBR's. That's a long expensive list of stuff that isn't stock on even an EVO bike let alone the superbikes. But it does prove speed cost money so its a matter of how fast can your wallet afford to go. The difference between $60K and $250K about 4 seconds a lap and 24 positions. The costs to actually run a WSBk team, i.e. salaries, travel, freight, hauler fees, hotels, food, tires, uniforms, spare parts, ect.. are likely the nearly same for all teams. But the the bikes themselves are vastly diverse in cost. No excuses just analysis. If EBR set out to prove their bikes were world class they succeeded and failed. Succeeded because yes one COULD take a nearly stock one and just barely make the grid in WSBK, but they failed in that, the bikes and team performed very poorly when and IF they did. But you are right time to move forward. Time to focus on customers who actual pay the bills by purchasing bikes and accessories. | ||
| Court |
>>>> salaries, travel, freight, hauler fees, hotels, food, tires, uniforms, spare parts, ect.. are likely the nearly same for all teams. They probably vary by about 40%. The catering tent and staff can add $25,000 per weekend. The balance of the items become a sunk (accounting term meaning fixed in terms of independence to performance and schedule in that most the folks lease their logistics equipment from an outfitter and the prices are all quite similar . . .simply a matter of how many transporters you have and some small variance in paying drivers.) | ||
| Fresnobuell |
NO doubt the price of those last couple seconds is EXPENSIVE! I really don't like Ducati, but I will give credit where it is due and the improvement of the panigale from last year to this year is pretty amazing. No doubt they are pouring in serious money to the WSBK program (and it's showing.) | ||
| 46champ |
Yes Ducati is doing well with the Panigale and what did they do they ran the Panigale in Superstock for a year or too while they were still racing the 1198 or actually and properly called the 1098R. They had a bike to race while they developed the Panigale. I thought that is what EBR should have done but I am not sure it would have done any good in the long term. Does it do any good to develop a bike with Showa big piston forks when you know you need top of the line Ohlins. I don't know maybe those here that are smarter than a airplane mechanic can tell me. | ||
| Classax |
Every good A&P knows the majority of the problem is the loose nut behind the stick. Unlike Ducati EBR hadn't the bikes or the money to run a developmental bike in Superstock and a prototype in WSBK. They made the call to go big or stay home. With AMA being what it was, there really was no place else for them to go and get HERO the press and photo ops they wanted. Tough year but if they focus on customers now and racing next year they should be ok. | ||
| Buellmojo |
Classax, you may have, more clearly, pointed out what I was trying to say? Since the brakes are not a chosen option for the team, does that cost really apply here? EBR chose to use their own brake set up, so I am not seeing the value, nor the cost comparison, of that example? With all of the "floor stock" components (which you clearly pointed out) already being installed on the RX, $40,000 + of additional upgrades is a significant amount...besides, in my world, the cost of the motorcycle alone is significant, let alone an additional 40 grand on top of that, but that is just me! The evidence proves ("analysis"), that the bike, in all of its showroom glory, is/was not as good as advertised at this level...but with that being said, you will never know, if you don't try! The WSBK EBR Team actually only earned one point in the series Brumbear, the other (the first), was earned by the Pegram/ Foremost Insurance Racing Team. |
