Quote Originally Posted by gtm View Post
that certainly looks like a fun class. How do they compare to say the am600 bikes in terms of cost of running a race season?
I believe H-D had a really good deal going for those who wanted to obtain a bike for the XR1200 class.

What I've seen close up of those bikes going around the track (I've been around them in a practice session) doesn't make me want to ride one. "Scary" is an understatement.

The problem with ALL manufacturer/bike specific classes, particularly those which are manufacturer-sponsored, is that the manufacturer support tends not to last forever. If the class disappears the moment the sponsorship support dries up, what happens next? If the bike in question is eligible for other classes and is reasonably decent otherwise (example, SV650, whose manufacturer support disappeared a couple years ago) then you keep right on racing or sell the bike for decent money to someone who does races or track days with it. If the bike has limited opportunity to be eligible for other classes and/or isn't a good track-day bike, then you have a paperweight. The two manufacturer-sponsored one-bike classes currently, are the CBR125 and the XR1200 classes. I'd put a question mark on the long-term future of both of those - in Honda's case, because the CBR125 is no longer the latest greatest thing (the 2011 model isn't even eligible!), and in H-D's case, because the parent company fundamentally doesn't "get" motorsports or even sporting use of motorcycles at all (witness what they did to Erik Buell). If the CBR Cup vanishes, you have a pretty cheap paperweight. If the XR1200 class vanishes, you have an expensive one. A 600 is only going to become a paperweight if you roll the bike up into a ball ... and if you do that, it makes no difference what class it was in ...