Success at the 6 hour!
Team effort is the key to a
great day at the races!
If you know Sy's you know we don't do things like everyone else. We like to try new things and test ourselves. We've taken on some interesting challenges over the years but on this occasion we even surprised ourselves and raced the only Harley-Davidson in the Oran Park 6 Hour. If you missed the footage on Fox Sports here is the play by play.
We started with a completely stock production 2009 XR1200 with 4,000 kilometres on the clock then we:
Stripped the lights etc. off of it to reduce the weight
Relocated the oil cooler
Modified the air box to improve flow
Fitted a lighter exhaust system
And added a Screamin' Eagle Super Tuner with Smart Tune to tune the new configuration for the Oran Park race track.
Our two riders rode the XR flat out for 6 straight hours covering over 628 KMS on ONE set of Original Equipment Dunlop Tyres. We used 79.8 litres of premium petrol and 12 litres of Gatorade (for the riders).
In those 6 hours the engine was shut off for 5 pit stops ranging from 34 seconds to just over a minute. The XR made us very proud as it made laps all day with no complications. Nothing broke, fell off, had to be adjusted or did anything surprising at all. It just went round the track, lap after lap. Every time the distinctive sound of that 45 degree opposed V-Twin roared by the grandstands the crowd would respond with cheers and applause.
Air temperature that day was over 40 degrees and the track was well over 50. Engine temperatures were peaking around 190 and averaging 150-160 for the full 6 hours.
The only thing the riders had to say is... "Yea, it's HOT!"
When we signed up for the race and showed up for tech inspection, there were chuckles from some of the competitive camps and remarks like "they'll never finish." The truth is Harley-Davidson has been winning endurance races all over the world for 60 years. Long before most of these competitors ever started building motorcycles.
At the end of the race, when we finished 15th overall, with OVER half the field behind us and 4th in the production class we were actually competing in, the competitors that were snickering at us the day before were congratulating us on a job well done. Dailybike.com reported, "One bike which just ran its race and scrubbed up as clean at the end as the moment it was wheeled off the trailer to start practice was the #9 Harley XR1200 of Sy's Harley-Davidson."
We came to this race in the true spirit of what a production class endurance race is all about. To show just how reliable and dependable a production Harley-Davidson really is. The bottom line is that we demonstrated just what a great motorcycle the XR1200 really is, an out of the box light, quick, fun to ride and tougher than most, reliable motorcycle.
As proud as we are of the XR we are even more so of the race crew. They battled the heat and wind to support the riders. We couldn't have done it without them. Thank you to our riders Dave Butler and Dave Fuller (the Dave's as they came to be known), Darren Folkes - Top Fueller, Charlie McCann - Fueller, Michael - Rider board, Torre Mauceri - Time Keeper, Andrew Stowe - Mechanic/Fire, Andrew "Ratchet" Waltos - Mechanic, Matchy - Coordinator, Mark Burden - Photographer and Mark Houssenloge - Photographer.
The race was fun, the motorcycle ran well and the camaraderie of the crew made the day. Thank you to everyone who made it possible and to the fans who cheered us on!
