On June 5, a bulletin was sent out that provided details about revised technical regulations for the Mission Super Hooligan National Championship Powered By Harley-Davidson that are specific to Section 2.10.3 Minimum Weight.
With the goal to more closely balance the performance of the disparate motorcycles that compete in Super Hooligan, the rule changes require that the minimum weight of some of the bikes be increased. Of note, the Harley-Davidson Pan America was mentioned specifically, and the minimum weight of the bikes has been increased to 450 pounds.
The rule change was instituted after last month’s round at Road America, and the affected teams were required to meet the new minimum weight at this weekend’s round at Ridge Motorsports Park.
For two of the teams—Saddlemen Race Development and KWR Harley-Davidson—they essentially had to reverse the development of their H-D Pan Ams from making them lighter to making them heavier.
Neither Saddlemen’s nor KWR’s bikes were at the minimum weight as it was, so each team needed to add their own amount of weight to bring them up to the new minimum. For KWR’s Pan Ams, they had to add 24 pounds, while Saddlemen’s Pan Ams required 38 pounds.
The additional weight is significant, and it’s interesting that both teams chose the exact same place to attach the ballast: as low as possible and as close to the center of the bike as possible.
As KWR’s Gene Burcham explained, his team’s solution was to fabricate two thick, rectangular metal plates, weld them together like a sandwich, and bolt them to the bottom of the Pan Am’s V-twin engine. The bike already has threaded bosses on the bottom of the engine that are used to secure them in a jig when they are assembled at the Harley-Davidson factory.
Saddlemen Race Development team manager John Sanders and his crew chose the same spot to attach the 38 pounds to bring their bikes up to snuff with the new minimum weight requirement. For Saddlemen, two metal plates wasn’t going to do it. “We considered tungsten, lead, and a few other heavy materials for the ballast, but the most cost-effective solution was to use a combination of lead and steel. We also had to bevel the bottom on each side to ensure that the decreased ground clearance wasn’t going to cause a problem. It was quite a process to add the weight, particularly when we spent the previous year or so working on all kinds of ways to remove weight from the bike.”
With such little time available between Road America and Ridge to design, engineer, fabricate, and install the ballast, testing was out of the question for the Saddlemen squad. Which means that Super Hooligan defending champion and current points leader Cory West and his teammates Jake Lewis and Travis Wyman, who are currently second and third in the standings, respectively, and only a couple of points out of the lead, will try out their heavier race bikes for the first time in Friday morning’s Free Practice 1.
KWR’s James Rispoli, Cody Wyman, and Hayden Schultz are the next three riders in the Super Hooligan points standings, so it remains to be seen how the new minimum weight requirement will affect the top-six riders in the Championship.
Both KWR’s Burcham and Saddlemen’s Sanders essentially said the same thing about that prospect: all six riders are extremely talented, and you can balance machinery, but you can’t balance talent.
Let’s watch what happens this weekend.
