Buell set up a large drawing board in the “barn ... - Whitehorse Gear

in the Daytona 200. Doug Brauneck would ride the bike, Erik wouldwrench, and Harley-Davidson would watch. They offered no money tohelp the test along so Erik arrived on his usual shoestring.Brauneck ran a dozen laps and was very fast indeed. A speed of 178mph was recorded on the radar gun and the handling was great. Hisspeed was such that Harley-Davidson began to believe that runningcompetitively at Daytona was not a fantasy. They wanted to see justhow the bike would do over 200 miles.This seemingly delightful result of the test was the RW’s downfall.Because of the time constraints Harley needed to run the test thatweekend. The only tires available that would survive the banking forany length of time lowered the bikes gearing. Erik, being broke, did nothave any gears that would allow the bike to run fast and stay below redlineon the Talladega banking. Brauneck ran some very, very fast laps.The engine seized. Erik fixed it. It seized again. Turned out one of therotary valves was incorrectly machined and that cylinder was leaningout at maximum rpm. Harley was not happy; Erik was still on his own.Now a regular guy like you or I might say at this point “Damn, thatdidn’t work. Glad I have a day job to pay the bills.” Erik is not a regularguy. He decided that if he had more time he could get this thing workingright and have bikes to sell by the fall. To get the extra time he quit avery nice job at Harley-Davidson. (Actually, he tried to quit, but JeffBleustein made him take an extended leave of absence so he wouldThe RW 750 engine was a 66.4 x54.0 mm bore and stroke, rotaryvalve square four. It featured twotwin-cylinder crankshafts gearedtogether. There are four separatecylinders. Many of the partswere designed or redesignedby Buell, including the pistonsand the flywheel. The enginestarted life as a 500; there wasalso an 850 version in additionto the 750 that Buell raced.25