Indian Motorcycle®, America’s first motorcycle company just announced its re-entry into the AMA Pro Flat Track series with its first full-factory racing effort since the 1950s. Indian Motorcycle Racing will utilize a new and proprietary Scout FTR 750 liquid-cooled 750cc four-valve V-Twin competition engine specifically designed for flat track and engineered into a specially built chassis.
AMA Pro Flat Track is highly competitive and has evolved into a demanding, technical and specialized event that typically sees bar-to-bar action and sublime motorcycle control at high speeds on varied dirt surfaces. Indian Motorcycle has a significant history in flat track, at one time dominating the sport with legendary riders and motorcycles. Perhaps best-known was the Indian Motorcycle Wrecking Crew, consisting of Bill Tuman, Bobby Hill and Ernie Beckman, who won race after race and carried the message of power, balance and quality that lives on in today’s Indian® Scout®.
Multi-time AMA Grand National Champion Jared Mees will join the Indian Motorcycle Racing Team as a test rider in 2016. Mees, 30, won the AMA Grand National Twins Championship in 2009, AMA Grand National Singles Championship in 2012, the unified AMA Grand National Championship (GNC1) title in 2012, 2014 and 2015, and is current X Games gold medalist. Indian Motorcycle will race the new motorcycle at a circuit to be determined in 2016 in preparation for a full season of competition in 2017.
“We are very excited to return to the AMA Circuit,” says Steve Menneto, President of Motorcycles for Polaris Industries. “We have established the new Indian Chief and Scout series as the cornerstones of our production line-up, and now is the time for us to return to racing in a big way. We know that fans of Indian Motorcycle have been anticipating this announcement and can’t wait to see Indian Racing back in action.”
“Indian Motorcycle was born out of competition, and through its history used racing to develop and improve the product as well as expand the appeal of the brand,” says Reid Wilson, Marketing Director for Indian Motorcycle. “As shepherds for the brand, we will continue that push towards excellence on the street and in competition, and our team is beyond excited to bring the brand back to professional racing.”
“I can’t express how excited I am to be the guy to bring Indian Motorcycle back into the forefront of AMA Pro competition,” says Mees. “We will have a lot of work to do to develop a 100 percent new race platform, but I’m committed and excited at what I have seen on the drawing boards and what the plans are for Indian Motorcycle Racing. This is history for the brand, and being a part of it is truly exciting for me and this sport.”
As expected. Great!
Go Indian. Go fast.
Jared Mees was racing for Harley-Davidson…. Indian back at dominating flat track racing? Soon.
ooooo. Tis gonna be gud
Harley better step up. Looks like Indian is going to make a comeback and looking right into HD’s direction
That’s a pretty cool looking engine.
awesome , competition !!!
Can’t wait for mote pics and info on engine. Head placement is interesting…..
Say it with me Polaris….Indian Scout Sport……
Kaw has been dominate on the miles.If they can beat them then they will have a feather in their cap!
Kawasaki has been the twins champion for the last three years. Almost all of the GNC 2 bikes are Kawasaki. in GNC 1 over half of the bikes are Kawasaki.
Hmmm…
Win on Sunday, sell on Monday.
Maybe one day we’ll be seeing 750cc – 1000cc or up to 1500cc street versions.
H-D has squeezed about all the life out of the old XR750 engine it can. Pretty amazing history for a long long time. Now H-D is building their Street 750 and Indian the Scout. Time will tell but the 2017 flat track season will be one to make and then remake some history! I hope either Indian or Harley can unseat the Kawasaki.
👍
Thanks for covering this- This is a big deal. Flat track racing is one of the original and core racing events world over, and it still goes out to the people everywhere. H-D vs.Indian is a storied battle for 100 years, it will be mega cool and inclusion of it likely in X-games. can you imagine the spending war and the fight for the top spot among the corporations. they will have to leverage this expenditure for marketing and likely we will get the higher horsepower little 750 Vtwins in a tracker street legal style form the American Moto Makers, i’ll have to buy one of each. flat track rules the roost, right behind speedwayGP.
More competition – BRILLIANT!
I would like to see KTM enter the fray – methinks in half a decade they will dominate.
Watch em race and watch em lose as has been Victory/Indian’s m/o since Indian’s return to racing as well as Victory’s [ who haven’t been in the slightest victorious ] entry into competition . Suffice it to say all bets are we’ll be singing ;
” Tonight we’re gonna party like its 1953 ”
Much sooner than later
By the way Emmet in case this bit of information has passed you by somehow . The Motor Company has already released and is already in the refining mode and ready for sale of its brandy spanking new water cooled V-Twin for the track destined to upend the Kwaka’s not to mention keeping the ever pretentious Indian in its place despite Polaris/Indian’s vastly watered down Swiss connection since Polaris purchased the company .
I have been begging for this to happen for several years! I wish Milwaukee luck with the street engine. Jarred is a great rider as is his lovely wife. I would like to see this take another step and Victory have a flat track entry. As I said before this is a win win for the public, better racing and better motorcycles to buy. Not to mention some cool new shirts!
This is great for the sport. Hopefully they stick with it until they’re competitive if they don’t come out winning races right away. I’m not really interested in the Scout or the Street 750 as bikes I’d actually own, not that these race versions really have anything in common with the production versions but a name, but i do like flat track!
It’s great Polaris is investing in flat track racing, which is having a much-delayed revival. Still, was it impossible to make the engine attractive? It’s my biggest complaint about modern motorcycles – the beauty of engine castings has been lost since the 1970s. The last racing Daytona Scouts motors were things of beauty, and the XR750 was a great design too.
Indian has been very busy lately. I wonder if Polaris ever let’s their engineers take vacation =).
Beauty is in the eye of the Beer-Holder Paul!
Adding in BS fins and surfaces is not what modern racing is about. And make no mistake – this is a race engine. Vintage engines look great because all the mass is at the bottom and the top – leaving a svelt mid-section. A cam drive that can rev to 11,400 rpm may not fit into that aesthetic or mechanical shape. We have been lauded for marrying vintage style with modern performance on the TS111 – all while making noise and emissions compliance to even make sale available to the public. Some facets of modern design have been formed by regulations. That’s modern livin’!
Besides – the view is better from the front – and once this engine is in its final form, colors and an actual motorcycle, I think that it will all come together.
I do still lust for a certain 1947 Chief…
Robert Pandya
External Relations Manager
Indian Motorcycle
I celebrate Indian reentering racing, but it baffles me why they went outside the United States of America for the engine.