CN
III ARCHIVES
BY LARRY LAWRENCE
I
t's been five years now since the fateful
announcement by Harley-Davidson that
it was closing down Buell. After 26 years
of producing motorcycles, the end of
Buell at the time felt like the dream of an
American-made sportbike seemed to be
over. Fortunately the Buell legacy was
reborn with Erik Buell Racing and lives
on today with EBR. Buell established a
strong racing heritage with a Daytona
SportBike Championship and then
AMA Superbike podiums for EBR. But
it was 16 years ago that Buell scored
one of the biggest highlights in the
history of the company's racing pro-
gram. In 1998 Shawn Higbees gave
Buell its very first AMA Pro road rac-
ing victory in the newly minted Pro
Thunder class.
The AMA announced the intro-
duction of the Progressive Insur-
ance Pro Thunder Series and the
technical rules meant a grab-bag of
motorcycles would compete on the
track. There were Triumph T595
Triples, Ducati 900SSs, Buell S1s,
Yamaha TDM850s and the odd
Bimota DB2, Kawasaki EX500, Husaberg
Supermoto, BMW R1100 an Australian-made Vee
Two and even a Wood-Rotax converted to a road
racer.
That year the road-racing season opened in
mid-February at Phoenix International Raceway.
No one really knew who might be the front-run-
ner in Pro Thunder, or even what machine would
emerge as the bike to beat. This was especially
true for the race on the tight, twisty PIR circuit.
BUELL'S BIG BANG
P114
Some felt that the Husaburg Supermoto ma-
chine of Don Canet or the Wood-Rotax of Nick
Ienatsch might be the bikes to beat.
Qualifying consisted of two five-lap heat rac-
es. Local specialist Thomas David Hull won the
first Heat on a Ducati, and Higbee earned the
pole on a Don Tilley Buell.
Buell had been around AMA racing in some
