XR'S RUS!

A tale of factory hot rods from a generation apart.

- Paul Bailey

1984 XR1000

Ever since I saw the movie “On Any Sunday” I’ve had a fascination for flat track racing and more importantly the Harley XR 750 flat track race bike. But being on the other side of the world from these legendary bikes has always made it hard to really experience what they are and what they are really capable of.

Back in 2000 Tom Browne (Metho Tom) the then dealer principal of Blacktown Harley sponsored Jay Springsteen, one of the greatest flat track racers ever, to come to Australia for the Ivan Mauger Flat Track series. Tony Blain (owner of ACME T-Shirts) also got involved and bought an ex-Ben Bostrom XR750 for Jay to ride in that series. Tony and I are good mates and we had been racing side-valve Harleys for years in the classic road racing series. I built those bikes and we had a couple of the fastest bikes in the class.

I was given the task of preparing the XR750 for Jay. Where I lived there was a couple of acres of vacant land at the back of my property, this became the testing ground for the XR750 while I brought it up to speed for Jay to ride in the races.

To ride that XR750 flat out around those couple of acres absolutely addicted me to flat track racing and to the XR750. There is simply nothing better than sitting on a 110hp V-twin Harley that only weighs 140kg and going flat out at over 100mph on the dirt – sideways!