Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

The VA program saw Inspired rides In Its history, beginning with Miguel DuHamel (Iefllin 1994 and ending with Pascal Picotte (above) this year. Steve Schlebe (below) managed the team throughou1 the majority of those years. homologated to be competitive, the decision was made easier. "Once the company understood what it took from a resource standpoint and commitment, there's other business opportunities that took priority over the Superbike race effort moving forward," Baker said. And there will be no Superbike program going through the Buell race team, either, Baker said. Though it's been lingering at the tail end of the top 10 for much of its existence, the end came fairly swiftly for the VR 1000, and even swifter for Baker's career as the race team boss. Baker made his first public appearance with the race team during a January multi-team test at Laguna Seca. A long-time H-D employee with experience in both the racing and business ends of the motorcycle trade, Baker was among those who helped launch the 1994 VR 1000 Superbike, the street bike that the race machine was based on. For 2001, Baker was brought in to replace Steve Scheibe, the original race team boss who'd been with the VR1000 Superbike program almost since its inception. While the Japanese factories and Ducati developed new machines on a regular basis, the VR 1000 just kept stumbling along, homologation rules preventing the original design from being significantly altered. Shackled by an aging design, Scheibe was heading a stalled program that suffered more than its share of reliability problems in 2000. In the first year of a four-year contract, Pascal Picotte rode to an 11 th-place finish in the 2000 AMA/Chevy Trucks U.S. Superbike Championship, with Scott Russell 17th. The team was hoping for a burst of energy when they signed Russell to a bigbuck two-year contract for the 1999 and 2000 seasons, but Russell didn't get on with the VR1000 and has since said that he wasted those two years. The best year-end finish for the VR was ninth, under Thomas Wilson in 1996. In its nearly eight-year life, there were only three podium placings, the most recent a second and third by Pascal Picotte in 1999. Picotte's best last year was an eighth and this year he was seventh early in the season at Road Atlanta, then rarely in the top 10. Smith's record is similar, an impressive seventh at Daytona, then an exile from the top 10. It was clear the program wasn't progressing. Still, all eyes were on 2002. "At the beginning of the season, it's always been part of the task to understand what it would take to get the Harley-Davidson Superbike organization to a championship level," Baker said. "So there was a pretty thorough evaluation, couple-month-Iong evaluation to do that." As recently as a little over a month ago, the team was trying a radically different steering geometry at Mid-Ohio. The steering head had been moved, which necessitated the design and construction of new radiators. It didn't work and was almost unrideable - the long-suffering Picotte crashed the bike -but it demonstrated that Harley was committed to development. A week later, it was clear they'd need more than radical chassis ideas. On the mile-long front straightaway at the Colonel's Brainerd International Raceway, the VR 1OOOs were down a daunting 13 mph on the fastest Honda RC51s. Coincidentally, that's about when the decision to stop racing was being made. "The decision wasn't final at that time," Baker said of Mid-Ohio. "We definitely were still trying to make the current configuration work and optimize it, so the decision wasn't known at that time." The assessment process had started months earlier, and everyone knew the worst-case scenario. "Obviously, you're not exactly sure what the outcome of the assessment or what kind of conclusion the company would draw from any assessment, but you always know that there's a spectrum of possible outcomes, so it's always lurking there, so to speak, but it's certainly not something that people are driving for or desire or want to make happen. And you don't know until you actually get to the final assess- ment of what it takes to go win a championship, and once you know that, the decision makers can sit down and compare it again, 'What are the future opportunities for the company, and is this the right thing we should be investing [in] and moving forward [with]? Baker's brief was a difficult one. While trying to improve the VR1000, he had to decide whether it was worth continuing, or if it should be shut it down. "Certainly, it's challenging, especially given the dynamics of the situation, implementing and setting up a new organization at the same time, evaluating a thorough assessment of what the future of the program is." Baker said there was enough time for an assessment, but not enough for a turnaround on the VR1000. "I think a successful effort definitely is viable with a V-twin motorcycle," Baker said. "The existing platform that we had has pretty much run its development cycle. I think the gains that the development team had found, and were on the path to finding, were definitely a step in the right direction, but it wouldn't carry us to that championship level, which is what we want to be at if we're going to be racing." The silver lining lives in the new V-Rod, though Baker said there was "no chance" of a race version based on the V-Rod. Nor are there plans for any new Superbike race platform. "Although there weren't many wins, or any wins, on the race track, there were other successes of the program, and those being, what it did is helped Harley-Davidson refine new technology, such as fuel injection and water cooling, for the company, and more specifically, the engine actually gave birth to the V-Rod engine platform and made that whole platform possible," Baker said. H-D will focus its efforts on drag racing and dirttrack racing. "We're actually stepping up our efforts in the drag race arena with the new Screamin' Eagle Vance & Hines NHRA effort," Baker said. "And, obviously, we'll continue our U.S. national dirt track effort." Picotte is being released from the final two years of his contract without pay, clearly a blunder on the part of his management. Mike Smith had a one-year contract that expires at the end of this year, as does the contract with Gemini Technologies, the firm that handled the workload at the racetrack. "We've got two more races and we'll take care of the people associated with the program and get them handled appropriately," Baker said of the fate of the 12-man development team. The end of the VR program also means the end of satellite teams, such as the Austin-Bleu Bayou team of Canadian Jordan Szoke. eN Dyele n e _ S • SEPTEMBER 12, 2001 61

• Cover