Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

o o I rishmanleremy Nlcwilliams failed to finish I his second AI4A race in a row on a track where his experience and ralent would probably have netted a top-six llnish. Ridint the co-sponsored Hal's H- D/Buell and Whrr's of London H-D/Buell XBRR, Mcwilliams had his sights set on the sixth-placed rider in the Lockhart-Phillips USA FormLrla Xtreme race at lnfineon Raceway on May 20 when an el€ctrical problem put him out near the end of the loth of 17 laps. "What can I say? Disappointed," l4.Williams said on Saturday afternoon at lnfineon Raceway- Fl.Williams was viclimized. more than most, by rain on Friday. He'd ridden in Thurlday's promoteE practice, but needed time to adjust both himseltand the XBRR to a track that neither he nor the bike had ever seen, Friday's session was dry for about live minutes. That left even/thin8 to Saturday morning's half-hor.rr practicdqualiring ses- sioo. Not only did Mcwilliams have to se( the bike up and pick a tire, but he also had to try to put in a flyer on a qualifier. "l messed tha( up," Mcwilliams said. "Just not havrng enough time and experi- ence with the lires and what to use. Pirelli's been really good with us. Unfortunately, we jus( didn'r get a Eood run at it." Mcwilliarm started the rac€ in llth place, three seconds down on pole-sitter Jason Disalvo. For the llrst six laps he was ninth, then eiShth for two laps before pullint out. "We've had a problem with the bike most of the day. and it seems like that's whar finally stopped it," he said. "lt's some- thint bloody str.rpid. it's only the ignition. We had a problem earlier on in qualifica- tion. k was iust enough to upset the lap rn some places, where I wanted to drive, it wouldn't drive cleanly." Mcwilliams said they'd been chanting fuel all day, thinking it w"s a temperature "ln the race I was havint a pretq/ good dice with a couple of moves that some ofthe guF don'r really appreciate, but I just want- ed to go forward. ' he said. "l could see sixth place was on the cards and I was workinS toward a sixth. I think that would have been absolutely spot-on for where we are at the minute. Top six would have been a good lin- ish roday and he3d forward after that," Mcwilliams said that when he started to push, because of the surface and the ele - tions chantes, you've 8ot to have a really Sood suspension setuP- "We iust didnt get the fork quite right. lf we had another race tomorrow it might be ea'y. "We know what we've 8ot to fix, we know what we've got to chanSe. lt's on the cards for nex! !ime. I think we deserve a fin- ish. We deserve some points here as well. It's one of those thints. I can't say anymore for the guys - they've been really spot-on trying to get us whatever I needed - they're doing their best. What€ver setup or whatev- er I needed, there's no question about it, they just get on with it. Again, I think we're iust a bit low after that." Bu€ll-phtform leader Steve Anderson said the problem lvasn't one they'd seen belore. ''lt looks like ar this point we're still tryint to figure it out and it's electrical. Basically, we have been working on tettin8 a basic reliabil- ity. And that's essentially what we were very comfortable with. Again, what we're seeint, these engines at this point are Soing hun- dreds of miles with no entine issues. We see a new electrical issue this time arcund. bw we're not having any of the drive line." The primary-drive related issues that knocked all four XBRR's out of the Daytona 200 have been resolved, Anderson said. Revised parts were tested at an ASRA week- end at Road America. "The primary drive, is at this point, appears bulletProo(" he said. "Priman/ chains that we were replacing at essential\,f every event are looking beautiful now. One of them at Road America we had 280 miles on and it still looked beautiful. The Searbox, we did make some changes after Dq'tona with what we call the bottle Sear parr that is on the output shaft. Those are, I believe, we frgured about 50 times the design life of the previous ones ard no issues.'' The day wasn't a total loss for Buell. An XBRR ridden out of Valleio Hadey- Davidson/Buell ridden by AFI''1 regular Shawn Reilly finished 22nd,8iving the bike its flrst Al'4A championship points. "lt's powerful and it's iust... Wow!" Sacramento's Reilly said. "Because we got rained out yesterday, we made some drastic chan8es with the torks and it didn't work. So we went out for qualifying, actually went backward in qualifyint, then another drastic change right on the trid, sayinS, well, let's see what happens durinS the race. And it actually got much, much betten So if we would have iust had yesterday, I think we could have done much, much better So, thankful for the opportunity." Arderson said there would "definitely be XBRRS at Road America," including one from Hal's H-D/Buell and another from Classic Harley-Davidson/Buell and lnnovative Motorcycle Research for Mike Hale, 'and there will be other bikes ther€ as well. I would expect three to four show up, maytle more," Ahderson said. lYcWlliams said that budget irsues will prevent him from returninS for Road America. "We need to find a sponsor," 14cwilliams said. As fo. the rest of the 50 XBRR'S, 'we'll probably ship the first of the production build this coming week, other than the eiSht Daytona bikes," Anderson said. "The first four are likely to ship this coming week, and then they'll be goinS out in quite some numbers every week thereafter." Henny Rd, ,[rdrnt Js€my lrtcWillbms wor heoded in lhe riEht dir€

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