Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

Steve Schiebe By Dean Adams h e surprise of the 1994 AMA U.S. Superbike Series has to be the emergence of Miguel DuHamel and the HarleyDavidson VRI000 as definite players in the top level of superbike racing in the United States. The forlorn days of the non-finishes that plagued the team at Pomona, Daytona and laguna Seca are behind them, and the VR is now a legitimate player. On-track, there are currently some Japanese factory sponsored teams that cannot keep pace with the VR And that bodes well for the future - for the Harley effort. Miguel DuHamel is a spirited, determined rider and his efforts have no doubt assisted the Harley squad a great deal. However, there is a thirty-something engineer who has overseen the VR project from nearly day one, a m an whose tireless efforts and vision ha ve produced, qu ite incredibly, a motorcycle that has gone from laughingstock to near-winner in four short months. Midwesterner Steve Schiebe is a shy, unassuming crew chief wh o could easily be confused for just another wrench in a black shirt ove r at the Ha rley pit area. He s pe aks ve ry softly"and avoids the lime ligh t. His influence is total in every fac et of the VR motorcycl e and race team: it may say Harley-Davidson on the gas ta nk, but if the bike tru ly . belongs to one man, that man is Schiebe, And w ha t of th e VR? Originating, like its creator from mid dle America, the machine is loyal to the d esign theories of the locale; meaning it isn' t svelte like a Ducati or overpoweringly techni cal as is the Honda RC45. Wisconsin ain 't Italy nor is it Tokyo, and the VRI000 was d esign ed and built in America' s heart land, a place wh ere tractors survive long enough to be hand ed d own from grandfather to grandson an d the first concern o n anyone ' s m ind w he n build in g a motorcycle is long-term reliability. Schiebe's face has worn a grimace for mo st of the 1994 season and it wasn't until the VRl000 qua lified on the front ro w of the g rid at Mid-Ohio tha t he allowed himself a few wide grins. The following interview took place after the fi nal q ua lifying session at Brainerd International Raceway, the day before the Harley and DuHamel finished fourth in the National. Understandably, he smiled a lot. What were your thoughts early on in the VRlOOO project? I have been on this project since October of 1988. The early days were interesting. . a lot of uncertainty. You make a lot of ~ decisions. A lot of people say that they 0\ want a clean sheet to start with, more ~ .. than anything they want a clean sheet. ~ (Sighs) They should try it some time. M You have to make every decision about ti every bolt, nut, fillet radius, material, color - everything that goes on a motorCO cycle. That can be quite overwhelming. And to find suppliers for all of these ....... things: You spend quite a bit of time just out cutting the grass thinking about all kinds of things you shouldn't be think- T ::s . .3 22 ing about when you're cutting the grass. The early days were busy. We thought that we knew what we needed at that time, and we were quite certain that this was the package that we wanted . We've never deviated too far from there. We had few resources in both m an power and money devoted to the project so it has just taken us a while to accomplish what we originally set out to do . We first concentrated on the engine and transmission. The basic chassis came after the engine. We had to make sure that we could do the engine first, so the chassis came second, bu t chassis lead time isn't nearly as long. Transmissions are a problem for some. We wanted a five speed, but everybody turned up their nose to a five speed. It doesn't seem to be much of a hindrance (Schiebe looks out in to the paddock). Maybe tha t'Il be the new fad next year - everybody will want a five speed. I've always felt that I ha ve had one hell of a task in front of me. I was hop- ing that people's expectations weren't too high, at least initially. Going into Daytona I knew that we had a chance at having a competitive basic motorcycle. I knew tha t our engine was solid or we wouldn't have went. All the brakes and all the major components were solid, we knew that going in or we wouldn't have went. We knew we had, and would continue to have, miscellaneous problems, but I thought tha t was part of the deal, considering all we had to do. However, it did cause us a few bad days, such as when a wire breaks off the fuel pump and it stops. That's what happened at Pomona, something simple like that. Those are the problems that we had at the beginning of the season. What we have done since then is just try to get all the little things in order. Basically, when we went to Daytona, we knew that major parts of the motorcycle were solid : we built our own engine, we built our own frame, we had our own suspension components on it, our own braking system on it. We hadn't worked on the gas tank much, we hadn't worked on the wiring harness much. I felt those were details that could come after we had dia led in the basic package. Will the frame continue to be made outside of Harl ey-Davi ds on? The frame is made in Port land, Oregon, by a company called Anodizing, Inc. They are a bicycle frame manufacturer and they m ake Specialized and Trek frames, I believe, but their main business is aluminum extrusion. They make parts for Freightliner trucks and most of the buildings in the northwest have their extrusions for window trim. They might be a 600-employee company and they have many areas of expertise - one of them is making frames. I was impressed with their fabrication abilities. They were excited about the Harley VR and working with us. That goes for almost all the suppliers and fabricators I spoke with - nine out of 10 were really interested because it was Harley-Davidson and what we were trying to accomplish. Anodizing was very supportive and enthusiastic. Largely, you chose automotive suppliers in contracting parts of this project ou t. Was that because of the confidentiality problem inherent in the motorcycle industry? . That was a large part of it. The confid entiality is . . . well, this is a small industry and w ord s p re ads fast about what you're doing. In the automotive industry everyone is interested in HarleyDavidson, interested in helping. but not so interested that they are going to tell their neighbo rs abou t it. _ It is Fritz Kling's theory that the Harley team will be eons ahead of the competition next season when carbon brakes will be illegal in superbike racing. You have used steel rotors from the very beginning. correct? We' ve never had a set of carbons on it - never. I was agai nst carbon bra kes for two reasons: one is for potential safety implications, and the other is cost. It seemed ridiculo us to be spend ing ten grand for a comp let e se t of carbon brakes and . . . what's the point? I'm not sure there is a performance enhancement. I'm sure ther e could be a slight advantage and there is a weight advantage, past that I'm not sure. I'm very pleased with the brakes, they are operating in the right temperature range, and the size is good. The only thing we can work on is better feel, so we've tried different pad compounds and sizes trying to improve th e fee l if possible. The Wilwood brake is the production brake that will be on all of the motorcycles. Same caliper, rotor and brake pads. This was their first effort in the motorcycle arena . We've had a few different pad compounds to try and they thought this current one would be the one, and they were right. Basically, there has been little brake development, their expertise is sufficient that they said here's your brakes and we said thank you. End of story. Where do you wan t this team to be in, say, five years?

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