58 years after Burt Munro’s iconic land pace document, Indian Motorbike returned to the Bonneville Salt Flats with an Indian Challenger plucked from their King of the Baggers secure. Here is how they did it.
Indian Motorbike’s racing roots run deep. From Ed ‘Iron Man’ Kretz’s 1937 Daytona 200 win and the unique Wrecking Crew’s dominance to Jared Mees’ fashionable flat track supremacy, the marque has powered champions throughout generations. After which there’s Burt Munro, the Kiwi folks hero who, in 1967, smashed the under-1000 cc land pace document on a shed-built 1920 Scout.
Nowadays, Indian’s focus is squarely on the spectacle of bagger racing. Linking their fashionable program to their storied previous, they’ve simply set a brand new 2000 cc land pace document at Bonneville aboard a modified racing-spec Indian Challenger. Right here’s a take a look at what it takes to construct the world’s quickest Indian bagger.
Working with their title sponsor within the King of The Baggers (KOTB) collection, S&S Cycle, Indian primarily based their Bonneville contender on their ‘common’ Indian Challenger race bike. The KOTB-spec Challenger makes use of the 112 ci model of Indian’s PowerPlus V-twin motor, which, in inventory type, is sweet for 126 hp.
Neither Indian nor S&S Cycle has revealed an official spec sheet for his or her 2025 bike. Nonetheless, we all know that previous iterations have boasted proprietary mods like big-bore pistons, CNC-ported heads, upgraded cams and adjustable rocker arms, and a highly-tuned MaxxECU ECM. So it is secure to imagine that the present engine is as hopped-up because it will get.
S&S Cycle pushed the Challenger’s engine even additional on this specific construct. Since high-octane gasoline can be utilized at Bonneville, they ran the next compression ratio to eke out just a few extra horses. In addition they swapped the lightened crankshaft from the KOTB spec for a full-weight one.
The crew carried over the KOTB bike’s 78 mm consumption—a purpose-built design from S&S that makes use of varied types of 3D printing to permit for complicated shapes and top quality. Floor clearance is much less of a difficulty once you’re blasting alongside the salt flats in a straight line, which left S&S free to manufacture a burly exhaust that prioritizes move over quantity.
Indian and S&S dove into the KOTB components bin for his or her Bonneville bike’s working gear. The suspension is from Öhlins, nevertheless it’s been lowered to tailor the bike to hurry runs. The solid wheels are Indian’s normal race-spec, constructed by PVM in Germany, and are wrapped in Dunlop Dragmax tires.
One notable deviation is the Challenger’s swingarm. Initially designed by S&S final 12 months, it turned out to be a greater match for Indian’s land speeder than the present KOTB half.
At a look, the Bonneville Challenger’s bodywork appears near-identical to the bagger race bike’s—nevertheless it sports activities a number of refined mods. The fairing was narrowed and fitted with a distinct windscreen, the entrance fender gained extra meat, and the tank was modified to align with the category specs and to create a tighter using place.
Out again, the Challenger’s track-spec seat was traded for a deeply scooped saddle, and its circumstances had been reduce open, narrowed, and put again collectively to create a narrower profile. Circumstances on a land pace bike might sound foolish, however Indian tells us that the entire thought was to see how a bagger would fare on the salt—and a bagger wants circumstances.
The rider triangle was tweaked additional by becoming decrease clip-ons and pushing the foot pegs additional again. The land-speeder’s cockpit makes use of the identical AIM sprint and data-logging system as its KOTB counterpart, however the braking system is wildly totally different. The crew eliminated the entrance brake lever and calipers, and put in a bar-mounted thumb lever with a Beringer grasp cylinder to set off the rear brake.
Buttons on the left-hand facet of the bars management the bike’s air-shift system. The brake and shift methods negate the necessity for the rider to seize at levers or transfer their toes, in order that they will stay completely tucked always.
The ultimate change is the Bonneville bike’s contemporary livery. Common Indian KOTB sponsor Mission Meals stepped up because the land pace challenge’s most important sponsor, so the crew honored them with a design that took inspiration from the Mission Meals race automobiles, tweaking it to characteristic Indian and S&S Cycle’s branding.
With Indian Wrecking Crew racer and two-time KOTB champion Tyler O’Hara within the pilot’s seat, Indian’s Bonneville-spec Challenger blazed throughout the salt to set a brand new AMA 2000 cc APS-AG document of 194.384 mph. O’Hara shattered J.Angerer’s five-decades-old class document of 169.828 mph, set aboard a Triumph in 1972.
The hole between O’Hara’s new time and Munro’s 1967 document is notably smaller; O’Hara went simply over 10 mph quicker, on a motorbike that was constructed 105 years after Munro’s and with twice the engine measurement. (Those that had been there’ll let you know that Munro went even quicker, with an unofficial pace north of 205 mph.)
“Bonneville is hallowed floor,” says Gary Grey, VP of Indian Motorbike’s racing division. “Whereas we’re proud to have damaged a document, this effort was about greater than setting a land pace mark—it was about honoring the legends who got here earlier than us and pushing ourselves to go as quick as we may.”
Supply: Indian Motorcycle
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