Indian’s big flat track comeback is no coincidence. From the early days to the early fifties, Indian left its opponents eating dust on American dirt tracks. We offer you a glimpse of half a century of furious racing.
By Charlie Lecach.
Photos : collection C.L. & archives Indian
Initially, Indian’s chief ambition as a pioneer of the motorcycle industry was to demonstrate how biking was greater than cycling or horse-riding. As a result, races in the early years focussed on demonstrations of reliability, endurance, fuel efficiency or the ability to climb hills.
Speed was almost relegated to second position, but not for long, because, in 1903, two years after Indian was founded, the first flat track circuit was inaugurated in New York. In 1908, two more tracks opened in Los Angeles. One was Agricultural Park and the other Ascot Park. However, barely a year earlier, still in L.A., Jack Prince inaugurated the first motodrome. These oval shaped, wooded boardtracks, like swollen velodromes, became so successful that the British promoter was soon building them all across America. Boardtrack events overtook dirt races, thought to be less spectacular.
The inherent danger of this new sport gradually proved fatal in the end. A succession of accidents culminated in 1912, with two Indian riders and six spectators killed in the Newark Motodrome, in New Jersey.
After this, the motodromes were referred to as “murderdromes”, and the situation got worse with the arrival of new eight-valve twin-cylinder engine racers. These “eightvalve jobs” also entered some flat-track races. Charles ‘Fearless’ Balke won a few events in May 1914 in Chicago, at the handlebars of one of these very fast bikes.
Another misconception was that dirt tracks were for 25-mile races and no more, since the ‘Dodge City 300 Miles’ was raced on a two-mile-long dirt track.
Glenn Boyd raced his Indian 150 times in succession on this track, winning the title in 1914. Two years later, people’s enthusiasm for the boardtrack died down for good in favour of flat track racing. The First World War postponed all racing and it only recovered in 1919. This time, the racer Gene Walker made a clean sweep of four of the nine national dirt track championships. Unfortunately, the fatal accidents continued making this motorsport, and motorcycles in general, look dangerous. In 1922, the Motorcycle and Allied Trades Association – precursor of the AMA – tried to impose a 500cc class of engines, instead of the standard 1,000cc. However, this did not prevent champions like Ray Weishaar and Gene Walker from killing themselves in 1924. The cubic capacity was then reduced even further to 350cc, but the race ended up losing its spectacular appeal and many of its spectators at the same time. What’s more, these machines were now out-and-out factory racers that had absolutely nothing in common with Indian production bikes, so making a case for “Win on Sunday, sell on Monday” was no longer possible. The Great Depression of the early 1930s that followed the stock market crash of 1929 did not make things easy for Indian.
Fortunately, the American Motorcycle Association launched a new category in late 1933, initially for amateurs on their production motorcycles: the Class C. It prompted Indian to produce its new Sport Scout early in the season of 1934.
Marketed to the general public, it could also race in this category and it turned out to be incredibly effective against its contenders. In addition to the hundreds of small local races it won every Sunday, the Sport Scout beat a Class C record thanks to Rollie Free, who drove her at 179 km/h (111.55mph) in 1938. As for Ed Kretz, known as the ‘Iron Man’, he won the 200 mile road race in Savannah in 1936, and then in Daytona the following year. In 1937, 1938 and 1940, he was the overall winner of the 100 Mile Nationals on the one-mile oval dirt track of Langhorne. The Second World Ward stopped all competition again, which gradually started again in 1947. The Sport Scout started to be overtaken by the competition, so Indian launched the 648 Big Base Scout.
Apart from a win in the 200 Miles in Daytona, in 1948, the brand’s performance was not up to speed, because the manufacturer insisted on focusing on single cylinders and vertical twins, supposed to compare with British imports. Yet, with their weight to power ratio, the Scout models were still undeniably the best machines on the flat track, as the three members of the Indian ‘Wrecking Crew’ demonstrated. Bobby Hill, Ernie Beckman and Bill Tuman were professional riders, as well as excellent tuners: they knew that in road-racing events they had a better chance at the handlebars of their respective Nortons. However, on dirt tracks, where gear changes and similarly brakes were not allowed once they had started and in which the torque is as important as raw power, nothing surpassed the 750 Scouts. The results speak for themselves: Bobby Hill won the AMA’s “Number One” plate in 1951 and 1952, while his teammate Bill Tuman made away with this coveted title in 1953, giving Indian its final national AMA win. But as we all now know, the manufacturer is back competing on the flat track since 2016 and the story is far from over.
BACK ON THE TRACK !
Indian has left no stone unturned to ensure its success in the American flat track championship, both with regard to its motorcycles and the riders straddling them. After a stellar debut late in the 2016 season, the Indian Scout FTR750 really entered its own in 2017, beating all its contenders. Now that the season’s 18 races are over, we can now review the results: with ten wins, the factory rider Jared Mees won the cherished “Number One” plate of the AMA, followed by his team-mate Bryan Smith, with four wins. This is a remarkable 14 out of 18 races, which is quite spectacular for this first full season and a racing comeback after 63 years away from the oval dirt tracks.
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