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LeoVince adds Performance Center in northern California

Facility part of a new focus for aftermarket company

LeoVince USA knows its strengths — racing and street bike modifications. When it found that the racing segment wasn’t being fully served in northern California, the company sought out to change that.

LeoVince’s new Performance Center at its Richmond, Calif., headquarters, is the first step in a series of new products and services the company will be providing to better serve its key demographics.

The Performance Center offers track prep and tuning services for roadracers and track day riders. It’s led by LeoVince’s U.S. technical manager Manny Hauswirth and incorporates a team of the top tuners in from the San Francisco Bay Area.

“For the Performance Center, we chose to really focus on our strengths, which is providing high-performance race products and services,” Tim Calhoun, executive vice president of LeoVince USA, told Powersports Business.

Services include dyno tuning; engine management hardware installation and ECU flashing; suspension, chassis and gearing upgrades and optimization; controls and rearsets and wheel and brake system adjustments and upgrades; fitment of track bodywork and windshields; and steering and geometry upgrades and optimization, including steering dampers.

“We’ll set a bike up A to Z to get it ready to go to the track,” Calhoun said.

Some of the products used in the process include the LeoVince Factory “R” Corsa titanium system, the Power Commander V for precision EFI tuning, the Bazzaz Z-Fi fuel controller, suspension upgrades from Öhlins and K-Tech and brake systems from Galfer, Ferodo and Brembo.

LeoVince’s Performance Center is the first step in a series of moves to better serve high-performance bikes.

Services are only offered for off-street race bikes because it gives the Performance Center crew a better focus, and because race bikes have fewer restrictions from the California Air Resources Board.

“We’re really trying hard to do everything CARB compliant, everything we can to legally install these products in California, and that means bikes that will only be used in closed course environments,” Calhoun said.

LeoVince chose northern California for the center’s home because it found there was a need for such services in the area. Southern California has a slew of high-end tuners, but the company learned from conversations with local racers that the northern part of the state could use a high-quality facility to tune their bikes.

To drum up clients for the Performance Center, LeoVince is working with its sponsored racers as well as the local American Federation of Motorcyclists club. The company plans to host an AFM appreciation day in the near future to let riders know about the available services.

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Roadracers and track day riders are offered dyno tuning along with a variety of other services at LeoVince’s new Performance Center.

The Performance Center opened in mid-February, and so far those who have had their bike tuned by Hauswirth and his crew have been stunned by the results.

“We’ve had nobody that wasn’t extremely happy with the work they’ve gotten from us,” Calhoun reported.

Though LeoVince has launched the center, the company wants to make it clear that it’s not trying to compete with area dealerships. In fact, LeoVince has sent staff to talk to local dealers about how they can work together.

“If you’re a local dealer, please sell the product, get it into the consumer’s hands, and we’ll deal with the rest,” Calhoun said. “By no means are we trying to take the sale from anybody.”

LeoVince is committed as ever to its dealers and its customers. In addition to offering the Performance Center, the company has more announcements coming this month, including details about becoming the American arm of a few likeminded aftermarket manufacturers.

“We want to take on brands that we feel are very similar to LeoVince in quality and durability, and we want to take on brands that people are going to look at on the same level as LeoVince,” Calhoun said.

LeoVince USA has opened a new Performance Center dedicated to tuning race bikes in Richmond, Calif.

The company is looking at unique high-performance pieces that a rider would add to a bike along with LeoVince products. Over the next year and a half, LeoVince is looking to add more brands to its lineup, bringing the total to eight to 10 core brands.

“It strengthens us as a whole,” Calhoun said. “It gives dealers more of a reason to work with us, besides our carbon fiber and exhaust offerings.”

All of this is in an effort to make LeoVince a one-stop shop for high-performance street and race bikes, a focus of which the company can easily gravitate towards.

“Instead of trying to be all the things we’re not, we said, ‘Let’s try to be what we’re really good at,’” Calhoun said.

 

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