Should you’ve ever fantasized about constructing a Harley-Davidson Sportster flat tracker, there’s probability that you simply’ve pinned a few Richard Pollock’s bikes to your temper board. Higher often known as Mule Bikes, Richard has been constructing flat trackers since day dot and has mastered the artwork. He could make a Sportster go quick, flip left and look spectacular.
His newest {custom} Harley Sportster is pure hearth. Constructed for a buddy who races within the Hooligan flat observe sequence on the US West Coast, it has a stage of match and end that you simply’d anticipate from a professional race bike. It seems sharp as heck too, draped in Harley’s iconic racing orange.
Richard kicked the challenge off with a 1987 Harley-Davidson XL1100 Sportster body, despatched over by his racer buddy’s sponsor, Barnett Harley-Davidson in El Paso, Texas. He rapidly stripped it right down to the naked necessities, reducing off superfluous bits just like the facet stand mount and a portion of the subframe.
Hooligan guidelines are designed to maintain the sequence uncomplicated and enjoyable, so there are limits to how a lot you possibly can tweak a chassis. You’ll be able to’t change a motorbike’s steering neck, swingarm pivot location or higher shock mounts, and any adjustments to the inventory geometry should be accomplished through bolt-on elements. However Richard is aware of how one can squeeze essentially the most out of a motorbike, regardless.
On the entrance finish, he slammed on a set of adjustable triple clamps from Durelle Racing, with the entrance forks from a 1991 Honda NT650 Hawk GT. Out again, he relocated the Sporty swingarm’s decrease shock mounts, and put in a set of Okay-Tech Razor shocks. Between the adjustable triples and the height-adjustable shocks, this flat tracker can now be fine-tuned for optimum outcomes.
The billet wheels are 19” flat track-specific gadgets, equipped by Lowery Racing and wrapped in Shinko rubber. Eager eyes will discover that there’s extra meat on the rear wheel than there’s on the entrance; the additional weight helps with traction on slippery tracks.
For the motor, Richard had initially deliberate to construct a race engine from hand-picked elements. However then serendipity struck. “Out of nowhere—or, extra to the purpose, the other facet of america—popped up a Buell X1 Lightning crate motor, un-started, from 2001,” he tells us.
In the long run, shopping for and transport the Buell mill price about 60 p.c of what constructing a brand new unit would have—so it was a no brainer. Richard put in the facility plant, together with a re-jetted Sportster carb and a Daytona Twin Tec single-fire ignition.
Transferring to the bodywork, Richard ordered a fiberglass gasoline tank and tail part from First Klass Glass in Michigan. They’re quintessential Harley flat observe items, and a typical sight on Mule builds. Longtime collaborator, David Tovar at SBK Paint, tackled the eye-popping livery.
A race-specific quantity board sits up entrance—however that is no flimsy, cable-tied affair. Look carefully, and also you’ll discover that it sits on CNC-machined mounts that clamp to the forks, and will be swapped out in minutes.
Additional again are a set of aluminum AFAM handlebars. “I’ve saved them for at the least ten years, after utilizing them for a pair,” says Richard. “These bars had been recognized for being mega robust and very bend resistant. An ideal match for the rock-em’-sock-em’ world of Hooligan racing on small tracks.”
The bars put on solely a Buell throttle meeting, a kill swap and a clutch lever. So there’s little to switch in case of a crash.
Should you’re searching for the place the important thing goes, you’ll be wanting for a very long time. The bike switches on through a lined toggle swap, mounted to the left of the Sportster’s {custom} battery field. Fabricated from aluminum, it attaches to the bike the place the heavy OEM metal field used to sit down, through rubber-mounted recessed fasteners.
Intelligent particulars like this are splattered throughout this race bike. Sitting on the appropriate facet is a shocking CNC-machined mounting plate for the foot peg and brake grasp cylinder; an element that Richard plans to make use of on a number of bikes which might be at the moment in his construct queue. It was machined by a family-owned firm that he found shortly after shifting from California to Idaho.
He additionally credit brothers Chuck and Tommy Connell, for serving to him weld up the bike’s tightly-tucked two-into-one stainless-steel exhaust. “Numerous guys working Sportsters appear to love the two-two excessive pipes,” he says. “However for shut racing on tight tracks, the low pipe doesn’t put your leg means out and burn your internal thigh.”
There’s extra wizardry out again, the place Richard mixed a Yamaha TZ750 rotor, a late mannequin Honda CB500 entrance brake caliper and a custom-made service to assemble the bike’s sole brake. Quick Blast and Coat completed the construct off, powder-coating some elements and Cerakoting others.
As at all times, Mule has delivered a drool-worthy flat tracker that ticks each potential field. And it goes pretty much as good because it seems, too.
“The primary race outing was a hit,” Richard tells us. “The engine is tremendous easy, quiet and begins immediately with a contact of the button. Dealing with was proper on the cash with gobs of energy.”
