Sunday 2 December 2012

Harley Davidson VR1000 - Thundering American Misfit

This article has been heavily revised to incorporate new information, and can now be found here:


Apologies for the dead link. - JC


3 comments:

  1. I was there in Daytona 1997, when Scott Russell was the hired gun. He was at the peak of his Daytona racing career and probably would have won it on the VR had he not gotten into a bar fight the night before and had his jaw broken. Anybody remember the bungled pit stop when Picotte was in third place and gaining? I always respected H-D for trying, and cursed the gods for conspiring against this project. It set American motorcycling back decades. -- JT

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    1. They couldn't keep an engine together long enough to finish a race with Mr. Daytona , it became his job to socialize with the crowd during the race , seen him do it in Brainerd corner 9 . Miguel and Pascal did a bit better but it was all a short lived publicity stunt . The bike is a beast that ate up corners and fell on it's face in the straights . Kind of sickening and insulting to those that have worked so hard at racing , they threw money at it like no tomorrow to pay for a full time chef and a decked out motor home . And than the V-rod was introduced .

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  2. Maybe Erik Buell can bring American Racing back. If not him, then maybe no one will with the cutthroat technological developments going on in motorcycle racing for the past 15 years overseas... Wonder what it would be like if the VR came out in '91 or so. Would have been majorly popular and may have sparked a real future for American competition. Well, at least we supply some damn good riders.

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