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The new leadership at Harley-Davidson continues to shake up business as usual as the company announced today that it is ending its long-running association with Vance & Hines in American Flat Track and NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle racing.
In a move Harley-Davidson characterized as returning to its roots in racing, the company will support individual Harley-Davidson dealers who want to go racing through development of contingency programs instead of supporting the factory teams run by Vance & Hines. The announcement did say that Vance & Hines would continue building XG750R-based race bikes for sale to teams that plan to compete in the SuperTwins and Production Twins classes in AFT.
The pullback from racing is consistent with several retrenchment moves the company has taken under the new leadership of CEO Jochen Zeitz. The company has withdrawn from dozens of international markets, has reduced the number of models it plans to produce by about a third and has abandoned previous strategies aimed at growing worldwide sales. Zeitz has focused on the core customers and business, and it's easy to see that racing is peripheral to that.
The move also looks like the waving of a white flag (in this case symbolizing surrender, not the last lap) in the face of Indian's dominance in the top class of AFT racing ever since it introduced the FTR750 race bike. Indian has won every title since and swept many AFT podiums. If the Vance & Hines team, with all its experience, couldn't win the SuperTwins class with the XG750R, then it's hard to imagine a local Harley-Davidson dealer buying an XG750R from Vance & Hines and doing dramatically better, though the Harley has been successful in the Production Twins class.
Vance & Hines and Harley-Davidson had more success together in drag racing, where the team won 10 championships in 18 seasons.
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