Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

"~ o N D Werner celebrated with his current rider, Scott Parker, following Parker's victory at the 1987 Lima (Ohio) Half Mile, which marked Werner's 50th National win. 34 a hassle. Yo u can' t see th e race tra~k. People alwa ys hassling you abo u t don 't stand here,don 't go there. It 's tough enough wi thout having so me body rag on you. Has the new restrictor rule helped Harley riders? We were competitive last year (when restr ictors weren 't required). If we didn't have restrictors we' d still be . com pe tit ive. What about Honda? Aren 't you the guy who sai d, "What we spend in 20 years they spend in one year. " T h at's T ed Bo od y' s st a te m e n t. H onda wa nt ed so met hi ng and they spared n o cos t 'gett i n g i t. T hey shouldn't be cri tici zed for th at. T he y did n 't do i t half-hearted ly. They wa nted someth ing and ' they pa id wh at it too k to get it. T ha t's competition. You either ante-up or ge t o ut. It 's like a poker ga me. You want to see m y cards you got to lay it down. Do you feel at a disadvantage against .the Hondas? We're a t a technical disadv antag e in that th ey have a more updated engine ' :.... overhead ca ms, four valv es, titanium rods. It s potential may be a little gr eater. than ou rs, but cu bic hor sep ow er isn 't always the answer. The maj ori ty of th e tim e th e guy wh o gets arou nd the turns the fastest is go ing to wi n. If you co nce ntra te on the turns, th e straigh taways tend to work themselves ou t. (The key to winning) is getting the engine, rider and cha ssis to work together as a u n it. What ab out on the mile? Does a slower bik e have a chance? Yo u can ' tak e a slightly slow er bike a nd. have someone tow you aro und a nd beat th em, but you can ' t tak e a marginally slower bike a nd run off a nd hide ' from everyone. You can take a bi ke tha t's three horsepower less th an the com pe titio n and win w ith it. If yo u have one that 's five horsepower less, it's going to be real . tough. If you're two horsepower less, you're in the hunt. If you're one or two horses ah ead of everybody, that's not eno ugh to ens ure you th e victory if you break even riding wi se. What's a typical season like for a factory tuner? You work durin g the wi nter, doing engine development, maybe chassis developmen t. You get in touch with vendors to see what's ne w in th e in dustry. What's the latest carburetor? What's th e la test cam? What's th e latest shock absorber? What 's new in tires? Then you try to figu re o u t how you 're go ing to tie a ll th a t into you r program for next year. Development tends to spill over into the year, but you wa n t to sto p th at a t so me ti m e a n d m ake a decision abo u t, here, th ese are th e cards we're going to play. You don' t wa nt to end up beating yourse lf by tr yin g expe r i m e n tal thin g s, a ltho ug h from time to time you 're pressed in to it. You want to mak e up yo ur mind abo u t wh at car ds you want to pl ay a nd at the beginning 'o f the year you go a bo u t a massing th e eq uip ment to do exac tly th a t. If th at's good en ough, you play those cards and if it 's not good enoug h you may snea k' in so me mor e develop. ment time. The season itself is cu bi c maintenance, trying to keep the mo torcycles as good as th ey were at the beginnin g of th e year. T ha t's a very difficu lt th in g to do . T hings wear o u t. T hings change. Every valve job is a littl e bit di fferent. Every tim e you p u t in a cra n k it' s a little bi t different. J us t keep ing the bike as good as it was a t the firs t race is the key function during th e year. (It in cludes looking after) the engine , the cha ssis, weld in g a ll the little cracks, a nd checking all th e little fitti ngs. . At the end of the year it 's like a milestone off your neck. You say; "Geez, it's over, it 's finally over. " You don't even want to look at another motorcycle. What is the strategy for tuning on the National circuit? Wh en you 're behind you take risks. Wh en you're ahead, you minimize th e risks you tak e. You don 't get as radical with your setups, where they 're either going to work like crazy or be awful. You take a middleof-the-road approach. You can rev the heck out of an engine and it 'll be a little fast er, but yo u're taking some risks with its reliability; so yo u tend to under-gear it , to make sure it lasts. And you can do (certain things) to the chassis but you're going to tak e some tire risks. All these things depend on where you are. If you're behind (in th e standings), and you have to win this race or it doesn 't matter, you have to tak e those risk s. You ei ther get closer to the (solution of th e) problem or you get furth er behind. If you are up front , you have to perceive wh at the com pe ti tio n ma y be doing. You have to kn ow th e races wh ere they 're go ing to do well and identify th e races wh ere you want to do well. It 's lik e playing cards. You've got to know wh en to lay th em down and which order th ey come in. Leading a t th e beginnin g doesn 't matter. It's leadin g a t th e end that cou nts. What's the least fun part of your job? Driving back after you've laid an egg is not fun. Driving ba ck after you've done go od, well , it's still a drive back but it 's a little ni cer. T he worst thing is having so me thing go wrong th at you cou ld have had not go wrong. That just puts a th ing in th e pit of your stomach . When we drove back from Middletown (a National Half Mile held in New York on July 5; the fuel line broke on Parker's Wern er-tuned H arley-Davidson during the main event), I could have driven from Middletown to Milwaukee and ba ck to Middletown again a nd Lwouldn 't have been tir ed. J ay and Scotty (sa id) , " Look a t him , you can hear hi s teeth grindin g. " A rubber hose breaking! The same rubber hoses we' ve been using for two years, but still, it 's some th ing th at sho u ld n' t happen. It was a freak th ing. It was a bump he hit and he kind of go t into the tube a little, and it turned th e fitting and sp lit th e tu be. We've go t different kinds of routin gs and different kinds of tubes now , bu t I sho u ld have seen it as a potentia l problem. I get paid for those th ings to not happen . How do you -feel when you pay so much attention to detail, all season long, and something like that happens? It 's a (can' t see th e) for est for th e trees typ e of thing. You 've got th e best cams a nd th e best carbu re tors a nd you' ve got junk f ue l lines. Gosh ! Are you happy to be back at the Harley-Davidson factory? Movin g back into the factor y has m ad e a b ig differ ence thi s yea r because I have mor e time. This was a pa rt -time job for me for th e last two years . You work yo u r eig ht hours a day th en put in your four or five a t n ight. Wh en you 're racin g for the cha mpions hi p, it 's a 60 or 70 hours a week job. If you g ive it an y less th an tha t, ove r th e co urse of a season your effort will get wea ker and wea ker. T h is shock th at lea ks a littl e bi t, or th at chai n th at 's not qui te righ t - a ll th ose th in gs add up to one p lace here, o ne pl ace there. O ver the cou rse of a year th at 's the d ifference some times. Why di d Harley-Dav idson dis sol ve the in -house racing dep artmen t for two years? At the beginning of '85 the factory made some cutbacks. O ne of the things th ey wanted to cut back on was the money they were spending on racing. They wanted to do it (racing) but they wanted to do it chea per. They laid off a bunch of people in the racing department, took the racers and gave th em their bikes and sa id, "Here, go hire some people to tune 'em for you. We'll still participate but maybe it will be a little less expensive if you .have some other people do it for you." ' Randy (Goss ) opted for a Honda ' ri de (Fredd ie Spen cer/SuperTrapp's Team Goss/Chandler), Sco tty hired Tex (Peel ) and Jay hired P a u l (Chieml). . I was kind of upset about it. I was going to get out of it and go back to schoo l, learn about something relevant a nd get a real j ob. Then, about a third of the wa y into the seaso n, Scotty gave me a call and said, "This thing isn't working out. Wou ld you consider tuning for me part time?" I said I'd think about it. I had real mixed emotions. I knew how big a job it was and how being th rown into it in th e middle of a fight with just bits and pieces would be a real chall enge. I didn't know if I wanted to do it. Scotty offered me so much money, call ed back the next da y a nd offered me more money. He thought we were talking money. I told him if I was going to do it I'd do it for nothing. If I was going to do it , it would be for my reasons. I wanted to prove a point - like, hey, mayb e you got rid of the wrong' guys. I really felt that. I think we had some very, very talented people who contributed immensely to the su ccess of those motorcycles. I . thought it was a mistake (to disb and that group) and that's one of the reasons I did what I did. How did you get back into the factory? It started this year. The riders had their own programs. Chris (Carr), Sco tt y and J a y hi red their own people. Scotty said, " Do yo u want to do this again , next year?" I told him.I'd like to do it at the factory. It 's just too much (to do it on top of a regular job). It 's 20 hours a da y. seven days a week and th at 's a big t oll on you. But th a t' s what you have to do if you reall y want to do it right. I'm no t ta lki ng ab out ta king one bike' to the race tra ck and hoping it will fin ish . You need two o f ever~ yth ing . You're 'co m peting against the Bubba Shoberts and th eir effort s. If you legitimatel y want to compete with th em that's wh at you have to do. We expec t to do good. We put a lo t of work in to it. It 's not a hobby. It 's a passion. Sco tty co uld have hired somebody else a nd kept it like it was, but he agreed that hi s full effort would .be moved in-house. H e has less co n trol . over the expe nditures. He mak es a little less doing it in -ho use because he can ' t contro l th e cost of tires and oils and ga ses. H e has less flexibility in his program because I'm no longer hi s em ployee. I'm the com pan y's .em p loyee. I rea lly think it 's beuer. I can do a better job becau se I hav e more time to work on the program and the kef is ti me . It 's not n ecessaril y the q uali ty but the q uantity - yo u have more cu bic tim e to mak e sure number of things get tak en care of: How has Harley-Davidson changedi Compare the days of Dick O'Bried with today. I can on ly speak fro m m y persp ec t i ve . I t hin k O ' Brie n was a n a uthor itar ia n-type of .ma nager a nd I think th e com pa ny was set up to be managed th at wa y. Somebod y wo ulq say, "Jump, " a n d ot he r p eo p l1 wo uld say, "How high?" a

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