| Author | Message | ||
     Eboos |
Since I am pretty new to motorcycling, and even newer in my interest in racing, I would like to know just about everything anyone could tell me about the VR1000. How did it do, what classes did it race, what went wrong, that kind of thing. Thanks. | ||
| Whodom |
Here's a well-written "obituary" for the VR1000 from superbikeplanet. This will fill you in on a few details: http://www.superbikeplanet.com/vr1000_obit.htm | ||
| Jscott |
It ran in the premier AMA SuperBike class from 1994 to 2001. DuHamel, Chandler, Russell, Picotte, and Chris Carr were some of its more famous pilots. A good short read is: The VR1000 Obituary 1988-2001 http://www.superbikeplanet.com/vr1000_obit.htm "...VR 1000 chassis, widely described as one of the best Superbike chassis ever." "Again, it wasn't all bad, but a great deal of it was very bad."   A beatiful machine, but in the end it was the greatest lesson on how not to run a serious road racing effort. | ||
| Jscott |
Whodom beat me to it. Another good read: http://www.motorcyclemuseum.org/classics/bike.asp?id=2 (Message edited by JScott on August 16, 2006) | ||
| Eboos |
Were superbike rules different back then, was this bike ever available to the masses? | ||
| Jscott |
It struggled racing against 750cc 4 cylinders. Now SuperBike is a 1000cc across the board limit. "...was this bike ever available to the masses?" Only if you define masses as 50 and lived in Poland. (Message edited by JScott on August 16, 2006) | ||
| Eboos |
I would love to see Buell build a superbike. That and the XBRR for FX racing would be awesome. I'm sure that there was something from the VR developement that would be salvageable and could be used today. When did Superbike switch to 1000cc for all configurations? | ||
| Jscott |
"I would love to see Buell build a superbike." Would'nt we all. The XBRR is a excellent first step though. "When did Superbike switch to 1000cc for all configurations?" I believe in 2003, but we would need our resident racing expert to clarify (José). Some good pictures of the VR1000's past racers. http://www.andrewrosenthalphotography.com/pages/vr1000.html | ||
| Diablobrian |
There is one of the VR1000 race bikes sitting upstairs at Uke's H-D/Buell in Wisconsin for those that want a close look. Steve and Toni took Me, Tim (No_Rice) and Kyle over there on sunday of Homecoming weekend. They have some cool stuff up there. Including some early Buells and even one of the "Kits" that is still unassembled!  Thanks again to the Mackay's! | ||
| Bads1 |
Actually Brian it isn't one of the race bikes,its a road worthy VR1000 with turnsignals and plate holder,head light,and tail light. Keith has put on the road.But its been a few years. | ||
| Jima4media |
In a related story, a V-Rod motor in a tubular chassis raced for 24 hours last weekend and did pretty well for the first time out. 757 laps at 115.7 mph average, at Oschersleben Germany. Considering that 110 mph average is what Superbikes do at Road America for a sprint race, 115.7 for 24 hours is awesome. http://www.v-rodforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44209 (Message edited by jima4media on August 17, 2006) | ||
| Diablobrian |
That's right my mistake. my camera ran out of juice while taking pics outside, and I was more than a little distracted by the Buells! Thanks for the correction. | ||
| Steve_mackay |
VR1000 sitting at Ukes...     Brian, I gotta send ya a CD with all these pics... | ||
| Jeffb |
S&S Cycle has one sitting in their museum. They bought it when they came out and converted it to Bonneville bike and ran it out there a couple times. It didn't set any recorders. They still have the street body work, but it isn't on the bike. I don't know of too many in private hands. Jeff | ||
| Jaimec |
I used to love it when my Harley riding friends stated they wouldn't join the AMA because it was "anti-Harley." Of course, the AMA wasn't anti-Harley, they were anti-NOISE. As proof that AMA wasn't anti-Harley I pointed out how the AMA bent over backwards to let the VR1000 compete in Superbike even though they were never offered for sale for street use, and weren't based on any existing model Harley did sell. They're basically doing the same thing again by allowing the XBRR to compete in a class with bikes of less than HALF of its displacement. The AMA is most definitely NOT anti-Harley. | ||
| Buellish |
We have two in our store,Earl Smalls HD.One in the showroom and one in the shop. | ||
| Xb12randy |
I just thought I'd search and found this thread. I had the pleasure of starting and I was supposed to do the rear tire change on Micheal Barnes (#34) privateer VR1000 at the 97 Daytona 200. I have film pictures buried somewhere of 2 VR1000's sans body work in the bed of my old toyota pickup. My friend kept laughing when we looked at my truck and said you have $100,000.00 worth of race bikes in the bed of a $3000.00 truck. We worked day and night on those cobby POS. They closed the garages in the pits at 8:00pm so we loaded them up and headed over to MMI where they let us use there lifts and shop till 4:00am to replace both wiring harnesses. Team 10K only got hand me down's from the factory Harley team. It was exciting but very disapointing in that Barney only finished 12 or so laps before the lights went out. Another electrical failure. Was a memorable expiernce for me thou as I've only ever wrenched on privateer bikes at local AMA CCS series races. Being down there on pit road at the start of a REAL Daytona 200. Not that watered down thing they feed use now with Formula Extreme bikes (no offense Buell RR Racers) Sorry for the rambling it just brought back some really cool memories for me. And the owner of team 10K had a street version VR1000 he road around Daytona for the week. | ||
| Swampy |
I have a Cycleworld magazine with the VR1000 article in it. You can see what the people thought of it back in the day. | ||
| Anonymous |
Oh, but who is ready for the REAL story of the VR1000? | ||
| Reepicheep |
Me! Me! Me! I can't wait to see how Willie G had an epiphany for what the headlight should look like, and how the whole bike was born from that vision! ;) | ||
| Indy_bueller |
Ooo!! Ooo!! I am! I am! | ||
| Davegess |
Well I don't know the real story but I do know bits of it and they sure did a lot of things wrong. If they had listened to some different people they might have been successful but that seemed to be impossible. | ||
| Court |
The classic case of how a gifted project can fall into the hands of an ego driven committee and have the life sucked from it. And least it ended with a pit stop that was long enough I could go pee and come back to watch the end of it . . . . | ||
| Firebolt020283 |
I remeber when they first came out with that bike i was so excited about H-D running in superbike but I just wish they would have done more. How is it they can push out the most sucsesful flat track bike ever produced ever. They can run a really awsome Drag racing effort that consitanly wins on a regular basis yet they cannot put that same time and effort in to a road racing effort? |
