Are you serious about flat track anymore?

[drgonzo21]

HD, I was very excited when I saw Indian was throwing its hat in the flat track ring. I thought, hell yes, let the battle begin. But there is no battle. Indian came in with three barrels blazing and you guys brought a knife to the gunfight.
I don't get it. Indian read the rules and built the best purpose built race engine they could design. They hired the best riders.
You, HD, read the rule book and elected to go with a production based engine, but left 150cc on the table.
Why not build a short run of 900cc Streets, enough for homologation and use a 900cc engine in the flat track bike?
Build a 900cc flat track engine. Put Dalton Gauthier on it. Make it a fight.

[Tin Man 2]

Most likely not enough interest in racing to make it worth the cost for Harley. Your average modern Harley rider has never attended a race.

[rokytnji]

Seen Kenny Roberts a bunch in the past at large motorcycle runs.



One of the most under paid fast guys on dirt that ever was.

Ball of death, wooden barrel riding, all things that are in the past now.
I guess now, it is a run to starbucks.

[jammantoo]

Originally Posted by drgonzo21

HD, I was very excited when I saw Indian was throwing its hat in the flat track ring. I thought, hell yes, let the battle begin. But there is no battle. Indian came in with three barrels blazing and you guys brought a knife to the gunfight.
I don't get it. Indian read the rules and built the best purpose built race engine they could design. They hired the best riders.
You, HD, read the rule book and elected to go with a production based engine, but left 150cc on the table.
Why not build a short run of 900cc Streets, enough for homologation and use a 900cc engine in the flat track bike?
Build a 900cc flat track engine. Put Dalton Gauthier on it. Make it a fight.

you kind of answered your own question when you say to build enough 900 cc Streets to homologate an engine. OK so you just make enough for a factory team, and no one else can get the thing unless they buy some limited edition bike. What you need is to make that bike available to anyone, that way if it wins on Sunday you are selling it to guys on Monday. You see there are no sales related to a win right now.

HD has ruled flat track so long they lost touch of why they did it.

Remember the 883 challenge? We all had 883s so when the race came to town we could compete. But the main superbike race only had a factory HD team with the VR1000 because we could not get that engine, so even if it had ever posted a win, third was best it ever got, there was no sales potential. THe 883 challenge had that potential but when they pulled the plug on the VR1000 the 883 challenge went away and there was a ton of guys fixing up 883s for the track.

Nope HD is not serious about flat track anymore, no sales potential. Indian however ha huge sales potential, if they beat HD then they sell any bike there is on their salesfloor.

PS HD did get a 5th place Yesterday at the Arizona Mile. But tell me what bike are they going sell if it wins? Put a flat track looking Street 750 on the show room floor and see what happens.

[felis]

I like watching it, but no - I don't think H-D takes it that seriously anymore.

About the 883 challenge. I think that was my favorite type race of all.
The only thing that could be better would be if H-D put on an 883 series dirt track race.
All stock Sportsters - all 883's.

[45Brit]

It isn’t just “mainstream” flat track, either. Look at the cheap publicity Indian is getting out of Hooligan Racing.

Harley thought they could appeal to younger riders on the cheap, by faffing about at the X Games... and it turned out to be TOO cheap... and more to the point, hasn’t worked.

[Crusty]

For years, Harley owned Flat Track. And everybody complained. The XR 750 was beating everything else out there. Everybody else had production based engines while Harley had a purpose built race bike. And it was expensive to maintain. So H-D decided to build their next engine based on the XG. It would reduce the expense of racing for the privateers and hopefully be competitive against the other bikes in the class; basically a return to the spirit of Class C competition.

Indian, on the other hand, went full bore and built a bike not even remotely like anything it was offering for sale. It's a purpose built race bike. If you tried to run one on the street, you'd have to rebuild it every week or two. They just want to win and Class C concept be damned. If you're a privateer, you'd better buy an Indian or you'll be sucking hind teat.

Harley got caught with the wrong bike for the competition. Now, to make things right, either H-D has to come up with a bike that's competitive with the Indian (and that will drive every other marque out of Flat Track) or the FTR should have some of the restrictions placed on it that were imposed on the XR 750 when nothing else was able to run against it. If it was fair to put intake restrictors on an XR, then it should also be fair to do the same to the FTR. It seems to me that special leeway is being given to Indian and they're taking advantage of it to the max. Maybe it's time to make them play nice with the Kawasakis, Yamahas, KTMs, Ducatis, etc.

Is it more important to get maximum brand participation in the mix, or is it better to narrow the field to only two marques? That's the real question.