Copyright 2004, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

“We’ve never fielded a factory effort,” said Erik Buell, who called roadracingworld.com to comment on our earlier post regarding Michael Barnes and Buell Motor Company’s racing program for 2005.

Buell said that the company hooked its support teams up with sponsors in 2004.

“We did help them, working on the bikes and working on the engines. But our dealers raced them. We got outside sponsorship money that helped those teams.

“We thought we were going to be able to field more dealer teams (in 2005), but we thought we’d be able to do it with outside sponsorship money, and we didn’t even get what we got last year.

“When they got the Daytona 200 involved, I thought we’d have leverage for more sponsorship, and it really blew me away. We’ll keep looking. I thought we’d succeed.

“We’re going to still have contingency money in F-USA Thunderbike, and Henry Duga will still be around at the races.”