Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127718
1995 AHRMA Daytona By Robert Fawcett 'T he Cam el Motorcycle Week race schedule at Daytona International Speedway takes on a new look in 1995, with th e AHRMA ra ce program expa n de d to tw o full da ys on Monday and Tuesday, March 6-7, and its crowdpleasing cocktail of vintage and mod em racing utilizing the same full 3.56-mile road cou rse as the Daytona 200 and other su ppo rt events, for the first time. The headline event in the BMW-sponsored AHRMA program will be run on March 7 - the first ro un d of the ne wly anno u nced BEARS World Series, a sixroun d championship run at major tracks in Eu ro pe lik e Monza an d Assen, fo r A HR MA's n ewl y a do p te d cate gory which ca ters to Briti sh , Eu ropean an d Ameri can / Austr alasian RacerS. First dreamt up in N e w Zeala nd so me 10 years ago, BEARS racing has grow n fast in popularity aroun d the wo rld in recent yea rs as·a catch-all category rewarding inn ovative engineering, in which hardly any two bikes resemble each other. Only four-stro ke an d ro tary engi nes are permitted, wit h a maximu m of three cylind er or rotors, no su percharging or tu rb och ar g ing , no fo u r-valve d esm o cylin de r head s, and no Ja p an ese-built engines or chassis of commercial manu factur e. Oth erwise, any thing else goes. The Dayt on a BEARS 50-miler therefo re see s a fascina ti ng co nf ro ntation bet ween th e NZ-bu ilt Brittens th at the class was respo nsible for nurturing, and in a revival of a classic rivalry of yesterye ar - Harley-Da v id son and Triumph machines, backed up by big-bore Moto Guzzis and two-valve Ducati desm os. Kiwi Andrew Stroud heads the lineup on the works VlOOO Britten that he won the Dayt ona BOTT race with last year, backed up by magazine editor Nick lenatsch on Jim Hunter's customer Britten. A battle of the journalists adds extra s p ice to the proceedings, with Cy cl e News' British contributor Alan Cathcart racing the three-cylinder Saxon Triumph 900, which won two of the major BEARS races in Europe last season. Check out the front suspension stakes, too: Will the Britten' s carbon-fiber girder fork defeat the Saxon's BMW-typ e'slider/ wishbone front end? Or will convention triumph (excuse the pun), with the race debut of two of the first tele-forked cu s t omer VR IOOO Harley-Da vid son Superbikes to be delivered, in the hand s of AHRMA Vintage champion Stephe n Mathews, and British star Mike Edwards on the Tigcraft VRlOOO H-D which he'll race in th e Briti sh Su perb ike Champi-onship this season? It'll be interesting to see how the performance of these customer VRlOOO racers compares with the factory bike racing in the Daytona 200. (Lett) And rew Stro ud will be one of two Britten V1000mounted racers when th e BEARS 50-mile race gets started at Daytona Int ernati onal Speedway. (Right) Alan Cathcart will ride a threecy linder Saxon Triump h 900 In th e BEARS race. (Below) Dave Morris will ride a Tigcrattframed BMW In the Sound of Sing les cl ass. Confronting this trio of liquid-cooled BEARS mod els is the air-cooled brigade, led by Pet e Johnson on th e Ma n fre d Hecht-tuned Raceco Guzzi that is also a pre viou s Dayt on a BoTT race winner, now in 1200cc form and stacked against Japan's Yoshiyu ki Sugai on the Sundance te a m ' s Dayt ona We apon 120 0 Ev o engined H-D. It seems doubl y ironic that th e on ly trad iti on al- engin ed Harley en tered in th e BEARS race at Dayton a should come from Japan - where are the rest of the home-raised Hog herd? Johnson gets su p port in waving the Moto Guzzi flag from former superbike racer Will Ha rding on the Stan Friduss Le Mans, whil e Devin Battley and Kur t Mund debut BMW RllOORS racers in the BEARSclass; in Europe, the lack of access to the fuel-injected Boxer's ECU computer codes to facilitate tuning ha s hampe re d d evelopment .of th e eigh t-va lve eng ine, whic h ha s lots of potential for racing. A hu ge va riety of tw o-valve Du cati desmos derived from vari ous models 'of varied vintage completes the multi-cylinder lineup, headed by evergreen veteran John Long on his Harris-framed 750 Pantah F-l , and Dave Russell on hi s more