The place there may be racing, there may be rivalry, and wholesome competitors brings out the most effective in techs, mechanics, and racers as they work towards a standard aim: victory. A type of basic feuds began brewing over a century in the past between Harley-Davidson and Indian Bike—albeit with a roughly five-decade respite on Indian’s half, formally. This goes far deeper than a couple of side-eyed stares and gestures, as the 2 iconic American V-twin producers have been buying and selling blows relationship again to the board observe period, all for our viewing pleasure.
The 2022 racing season was good for Indian Bike, which nabbed three championships. Jared Mees slid his Indian FTR750 to yet one more American Flat Monitor title, racing round a few of the similar grime ovals the place the earliest jabs between manufacturers had been exchanged. In the meantime, Tyler O’Hara seized the 2022 MotoAmerica Mission King Of The Baggers and Tremendous Hooligan Nationwide Championship titles whereas piloting Indian {hardware}. Clocks, as they are saying, had been cleaned.
There’s at all times a little bit of forwards and backwards on the observe, and MotoAmerica’s King Of The Baggers sequence is tailored to let this age-old spat proceed. Indian Bike drew first blood within the inaugural King Of The Baggers race at Laguna Seca in 2020, initially slated as a one-off invitational occasion.
When the sequence grew to 3 rounds in 2021, the gloves got here off for each side of the American V-twin coin, with Kyle Wyman and Harley-Davidson standing victorious. The fan response was unanimous—they needed extra. King Of The Baggers expanded to seven rounds the next 2022 season, which noticed Tyler O’Hara as soon as once more take the title aboard his Indian Challenger.
That roughshod historical past brings us to a cold Chuckwalla Valley Raceway, the place the full-factory S&S Cycle Indian Challengers of teammates Tyler O’Hara and Jeremy McWilliams sat on tire heaters. At round 620 kilos, raised to the heavens, and boasting sufficient billet bling to make a MotoAmerica Superbike resentful, these machines are a far cry from what rolled out of the manufacturing unit in Spirit Lake, Iowa. And individually, I’d quickly be saddling up on McWilliams’ trip for some seat time.
McWilliams joined the hassle as a growth rider and racer for the 2022 season. It’s a clever alternative, because the Northern Irishman has an impressively lengthy racing rap sheet spanning the two- and four-stroke GP eras, has achieved time in British Superbike, and continues as a growth rider right this moment on the ripe age of 59. By the way in which, he’s additionally been recognized to win races on these items.
Constructing A Brute
Reworking a roughly 830-pound Indian Challenger right into a fit-for-purpose 620-pound race bike takes severe engineering. It’s a tall order to identify what isn’t modified, however there are a couple of exhausting limits. The Challenger’s bolt-up spine body, fairing/bodywork form, and transmission should stay principally inventory—although guidelines enable lopping off a couple of body tabs for clearance. The whole lot else is honest recreation, giving Indian Bike’s technical companions S&S Cycle leeway to do no matter was wanted.
The place do you start when discussing a V-twin? The engine and Indian’s liquid-cooled 60-degree PowerPlus engine is constructed to the hilt, residing as much as the oh-so-American adage of “there’s no alternative for displacement” by bumping the bore measurement up 2mm, growing the combustion chamber measurement to 112ci (1835cc). A lighter, machined crankshaft helps the engine spool up with vigor, whereas CNC-ported heads and billet-aluminum handbook lash adjuster rocker arms maintain as much as the trials of racing. On the reliability entrance, the primary bearings are locked in place.
A honking oval air-cleaner peeks out from beneath the modified gasoline tank. In keeping with S&S Cycle Chief Engineer Jeff Baily, that’s the place important energy good points had been made because the inventory twin 58mm throttle physique and inside downdraft consumption system restricted the PowerPlus’s potential. A standard side-mounted consumption was slapped on to unravel that quandary, gulping heaps of air through a 78mm throttle physique designed for a 3.6L V6-powered Dodge Charger. In fact, every part is piped out of the burly S&S 2-into-1 chrome steel exhaust system.
That leaves us with a V-twin making “greater than 150 horsepower and 150 ft-lbs of torque,” in line with staffers, and all that energy is fed via a series ultimate drive, versus a belt. Race groups are tight-lipped about their commerce secrets and techniques regarding practically every part about their bikes, and these are the one ballpark efficiency figures they had been keen to share.
Pumping out numbers like that begs the query of sturdiness. “A part of what received us the 2022 championship was our reliability,” mentioned Bailey. “We would have liked to verify we completed each race. Despite the fact that it meant pizza within the pits on Saturday nights, we determined to be ultra-conservative and put a recent motor in for race day.”
Every Challenger makes use of two engines per weekend. Each are torn down and inspected after each race weekend, the place normally they obtain piston rings and are put again in play. It’s a method that performed into their favor final season and throughout the opening 2023 King Of The Baggers spherical at Daytona Worldwide Speedway that noticed the manufacturing unit Harley-Davidsons struggling mechanicals.
Any slammed, low-slung bagger just like the Challenger is vertically challenged—for cornering, you want floor clearance. McWilliams summed up the scenario, saying, “It is a Challenger on steroids. It’s pumped up; it’s larger and tough even to succeed in the ground on. We’ve gotta make floor clearance, we’ve gotta make it steer, we’ve gotta make it cease, and we’ve gotta make it change course. All these features maintain us very busy attempting to work out the right way to make the most effective of it.”
To that finish, Tyler and Jeremy’s steeds opted for customized billet triple clamps with eccentric inserts to fiddle with offset. Serving to enhance trip peak and floor clearance is a personalized 48mm Öhlins fork from a lanky Ducati Multistrada 1260 Pikes Peak, because the beefier front-end meeting provides a great deal of much-needed rigidity. The 2023 bike has a more-appropriate Öhlins FGR sequence fork generally present in WSBK and MotoAmerica paddocks. In fact, an Öhlins TTX shock is out again.
The “inventory” swingarm is something however, with huge bracing for stiffness and machined axle slots to shorten the wheelbase. The clutch case relocates the cable-pull arm to the highest, together with a low-profile stomach pan—all within the title of floor clearance.
Then there may be the stately cockpit, bestowed with clip-on fashion handlebars and rearsets that conveniently bolt as much as the OEM mounting factors for the passenger footpegs on the body. That’s a far sight higher than the engine-mounted rearsets we skilled whereas using Kyle Wyman’s championship-winning bagger. Intense vibrations felt via Wyman’s pegs felt like somebody was taking an impression wrench to the underside of my boot.
In fact, it’s all a menagerie of drool-worthy Superbike-spec elements, rounded out by a Galespeed grasp cylinder, twin four-piston Brembo calipers within the entrance, Alpha Racing rotors, and a four-piston Hayes caliper within the rear with a captive under-mount hanger. Naturally, an AiM DL2 datalogger replaces the Indian’s ordinary infotainment system. Lastly, we opted for Dunlop Sportmax This fall tires on the Oz Racing cast aluminum wheels because the chilly situations weren’t conducive to the right Dunlop slicks that they’re usually working.
All of it feels like unobtanium on paper, but it surely isn’t, technically. For a cool $92,229, you may add the 2023 Indian Challenger RR to your steady and trip what is basically the identical bike seen right here.
Befriending The Behemoth
There may be trepidation with using something new, particularly when coping with a prototype race bike the scale of a Clydesdale and what guarantees to be an equally vicious kick. With an S&S Cycle/Indian Bike crew member wrangling the fairing to maintain the bike upright in pitlane, I hopped (actually) into the saddle and received my bearings. The levers and foot controls are all in the best place—twist the best grip, and off we go!
Placing its enormity apart for now, there are a couple of hanging attributes concerning the S&S Cycle Indian Challenger that instantly stand out. Immense torque propels this bounding behemoth ahead like a rampaging warfare elephant. Rolling on the ability for the primary time is intense. It’s as in case you are standing bare-chested in a Class 5 hurricane, with all of the noise and fury to match. Furthermore, the lightened crank slashes to the 7700-rev restrict with absolute ferocity. There’s nothing lopey or lumbering about this V-twin; it needs to gallop into each nook at full tilt.
Taking a beat to wrap my head round it, and issues started to come back into focus. Sure, it’s uncooked and undeniably rowdy, however the energy supply is the definition of tractable. That facet turns out to be useful, contemplating there’s no traction management to avoid wasting your bottom. The one technique to make all that grunt usable is with an excellently tuned ride-by-wire throttle, which McWilliams sees as one of many bike’s crowning achievements.
“Throttle mapping is a big a part of what makes this bike this profitable,” McWilliams explains. “Whenever you’re producing these sorts of torque figures, you’ve received to be very delicate with the way you get the ability to the rear wheel, and the calibration guys are very, excellent with that.”
Different slivers of civility come via within the tidy gearbox, which staffers rapidly reminded us is generally inventory. A prototype slipper clutch is the one notable change. It’s additionally full with an up/down quickshifter.
Grabbing an upshift is clean crusing, although the autoblipper was a bit hair-raising. With that a lot engine braking on faucet, a hearty tail-wag is in retailer if you happen to get a downshift even a contact incorrect. So, I resorted to rev matching the old school approach. And, my phrase, it shifts much better than the championship-winning Harley-Davidson Highway Glide Particular.
Sitting up in that lofty seat will make you are feeling like a child dangling your toes from a highchair, and Kyle’s H-D is taller nonetheless. A minimum of the chunky gasoline tank pummel helps you cling on for pricey life throughout braking phases or when leaned over. But, I yearned to be additional over the entrance to glean treasured front-end suggestions. That’s regardless of as a result of the Indian lads have put collectively a bagger that may boogie—nearly freakishly so.
Nothing this lengthy, this tall, and this massive ought to be capable of flip via Chuckwalla’s turns 8 and 9 with that sort of agility. A number of the credit score has to go to the excessive heart of gravity, which helps the rider affect this mighty beast. It could be constructed like a cornfed linebacker, but it surely’ll change course like a hot-footed sprinter when requested. In that sense, the desert circuit’s corner-speed-heavy format isn’t misplaced on the large Indian.
Leaning a machine this tall on its facet is an expertise that requires fairly a little bit of reprogramming on the rider’s behalf. It looks like a residing, respiratory organism, writhing and wriggling from mid to nook exit. The group chalks it as much as chassis flex, and their palms are tied by the foundations; no bracing, extra welds, or helps will be added to the aluminum spars bolted to the primary spine body.
You’ve received to be taught to like the wiggle that makes itself recognized when first selecting up the throttle, which then trails off because the bike stands upright. Curiously, that is the place the Harley camp has a leg up towards its direct competitors; the Screamin’ Eagle bike is way extra steady at each stage of a flip. Even with all that happening, you may intention it in a course with out a lot drama.
One missed intelligent bit pertains to the carbon fiber luggage. Normally, luggage can be mounted on to the subframe. McWilliams famous {that a} good bit of vitality might be transferred to the chassis via bumpy corners once they begin bouncing. The answer? Isolate the baggage from the chassis. The saddlebags are mounted to rails that slide via the width of the Challenger, permitting them to maneuver barely, making a quasi-damper.
The ritzy Öhlins suspension is nearly as good because it appears, providing greater than sufficient assist when grabbing a fistful of the highly effective brakes and slowing this hulking beast. As this racing bike is about the identical measurement as your common European economic system automobile, you may hammer on the brakes with gusto. In that sense, it’s as refined as any top-tier superbike available on the market, with efficiency that may mimic it in lots of instances.
Again To The Paddock
It takes some time to soak up all of it. The sheer energy, the scale, and the agility are issues that every one appear diametrically opposed to 1 one other. And but, it really works, even after I’m wobbling round merely attempting to deliver it residence in a single piece. What turns into abundantly clear is the potential that’s prepared and ready for anybody keen to huck a beast on its facet at practically 60 levels of lean. O’Hara and McWilliams are simply the boys for the job.
MotoAmerica’s King Of The Baggers has rapidly morphed from novelty to full-fledged manufacturing unit efforts. The grids aren’t getting smaller, and neither is the fan consideration. The proof is within the efficiency, seeing because the main packs can run lap occasions at racetracks that aren’t simply respectable; they’re downright quick.
When it’s all mentioned and achieved, it’s exhausting to see the S&S Cycle Indian Challenger as something however a thoroughbred superbike. It has the pedigree, engineering, and efficiency to again these claims up. But, one other intangible makes it so interesting. King Of The Baggers is a uniquely American sequence via and thru, together with the rivalries between the machines and manufacturing unit groups. And in that, it’s exhausting to take your eyes off it.
Pictures by Brian J. Nelson et al
King Of The Baggers S&S Cycle Indian Challenger Check Photograph Gallery
