Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

(Above) Hines desiflned the V-Rod's racing engine entirely from scratch. The V-twin Is allowed 1 eo cubic Inches agalns1 Ute 92 cubic-Inc limit for Ute clau-s1andard two-valve Inline fou.... (RIght) Gary "G.T.n Tonglet Jr. Is the team's new rider. The 18-year-old finished sixth In Ute cia.. In 2001, and _ recognized with Ute Automobile Club of SOuu.em Callfomla Road to Ute Future Award. brawny looking piec;e, but the question remains as t whether or not it can boldly go where no other V-twin has gone before. After sifting througH the data rovided by the onboard computer system, which records a head-spinning array of information - such as rpm, air/fuel ratio for the entire run, clutch slippage, throttle position and wheel speed, just to name a few - Hines gets down to business, readying the bike for the second round of qualifying. The data clearly shows that the V-Rod's 60-foot times are as good as any other bike in the class, but it is struggling on the top end. It is obviously not running the way that Hines wants it to be, but he is hard-pressed to figure out why. "If I knew that, I would fix it," Hines says calmly. "We're just short about 5075 horsepower is all. I know it's in there somewhere because I've seen it on the dyno. There's a bug in there somewhere, and we need to work it out." Part of the problem, Hines relates, is that while he designed and built the whole works, the tuning notebook is obviously still a volume of empty Tonglet drew considerable attention at Ute ser-t*l' ..... m~d1. . trailer, signing Iiiindreds of autographs during the weekend. pages. He is literally writing the book on how to drag race a Pro Stock Harley-Davidson as he goes along. The V-Rod has been firei:! down the track in anger only a few times, and more test time i ne ded. At Gainesville, each pass is still a learning experience. That's not the way that the team had wanted to make its debut, but there was obvious pressure to be ready in time for the Gatornationa Is. As the call for round two comes, the team is hopeful that it can lay down a better number. After completing his burnout, Tonglet is backed up and then stages the bike. It appears to leave hard again, and he fires it straight and true as he thunders down the track. If only the V-Rod's glorious sound were a good indication of Tonglet's performance, he'd already be in the show, but a 7.68 at 167.41 mph - while better than the previous run - leaves the team no closer to its goal. At least the bump spot hasn't changed much. The 16th-fastest qualifier is in with a 7.48. If Vance & Hines hopes to keep its streak alive, they'll have to come back tomorro . Saturday's-sessions presen only two ore chances for Tonglet and the V-Rod to make the leld. The Screamin-'- Eagle V-Ro doesnot mark the first attempt at getting a off what others thought impossible. When, at the height of their Pro Stock success, Vance & Hines decided that ey-woulli-'try the mystical, murky -"---ate of Top Fuel on for size in the early '80s, thew peers questioned the move, suggesting that maybe the pair had bit off more than they could chew. It was a struggle at first, but persistence would payoff with the class' first 200-mph timeslip, and later, the NHRA Championship. Those same peers might also have let out a guffaw when Hines elected to not only build and tune a Yamahapowered Pro Stock bike, but to actually ride the thing himself in NHRA competition. Tweaking an FJ1200based engine that was considered too old and too far behind the curve to be competitive, l-\ines went on to make history as the only Yamaha rider ever to win an NHRA National Pro Stock event by storming home in the final round at Topeka, Kansas, in 1992. Harley V-twin drag bike into an NHRA s~those same critics about V&H's show. In fact the ry' 'tse t latest endeavor, and they'll tell you some support to another effort before that iLanyone.x:an pull this one off, it makin the big move to land Vance & is Byron and Terry. Hines for its all-out assault on the A motorcycle as unique as the category. Coincidentally enough, the Screamin' Eagle V-Rod calls for a deal happened within close enough unique rider, and Vance & Hines proximity to the Milwaukee factory's wasted no time in locking up such a announcement that it planned to kill lad, Gary "G.T." Tonglet Jr. of New its VR 1000 Superbike and pull out of Orleans, Louisiana. The soft-spoken the AMA/Chevy Trucks U.S. Super18-year-old, son of longtime NHRA bike Series that there was some specPro Stock campaigner Gary Tonglet, ulation that meetings between Vance isn't necessarily revered in the same and Harley-Davidson that had fashion as current class stars Angelle allegedly taken place months earlier Savioe, Matt Hines or Antron Brown, were paving the way for the drag race but it is hard to deny that he was project. It's a rumor that Vance flatly already well on his way there before denies. Harley's opportunity knocked on his "We went to Milwaukee to talk to door. Already a full-blown crew chief Harley about taking over the VR profor his father's team by the time he gram," Vance says. "That didn't hapwas just 14 years old, G.T. debuted pen because they were obviously as a rider in the Pro Stock ranks duralready considering pulling the plug ing the 2001 season. He quickly on it, but they didn't tell us that. They made a little history of his own by were also obviously considering stepbecoming the youngest rider ever to ping up their involvement in drag racwin an NHRA National in the class, at ing, but they never said anything the Sears Craftsman Nationals. He about it to us at that time." would also make the fastest run in When Vance and Hines were finally class history, 194 mph, in Reading, approached, the idea reportedly met Pennsylvania. Having that kind of with some resistance from Hines, experience aboard the Japanese fourclearly the realist of the duo. But with cylinder machines that anchor the the financial might of the factory on class, Tonglet is as qualified as any tap, Vance the dreamer, the optimist, to describe the differences between the charismatic, was able to convince the V-Rod and its competition. Hines that the deal was simply too "There's a big torque difference, good to resist. Furthermore, the but there's no real power difference: Harley money presented Hines, who Tonglet says. "There are a few more has been long recognized as a brilvibrations up top than on a four, but liant engineer, with the opportunity of I'm getting used to it. Also, without a a lifetime. The liberal allowances that fairing, you really feel the windblast Pro Stock Bike owners group Pr02 on the top end. But the torque is just petitioned for, and that the NHRA had awesome. It hits like a two-stroke. approved, meant that Hines would Once we get a few things sorted out, ge the chance to start with a clean it's really going to run hard." ~heet of paper and build what is The team gets its second-to-Iast effectively his own V-twin motorcycle chance to prove that on Saturday drag race e gine from the ground up. morning. Following a brief promotional commercial on the Motel 6 DiaSti I, building any high-performance mondvision that touts how the V-Rod mechanical device - be it a dragster will revolutionize the class, the team or a wristwatch - is a mountainous rolls to the line and a crewman task, and one that might have been engages the starter to fire the bike. too much for other tuners. There's a certain beauty to the VThen again, it wouldn't be the first Rod's exhaust note, a sound that is time that Vance & Hines has pulled cucl. n • _ :IS • APRIL 10, 2002 15

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