After last year’s dominant performance, many privateer riders are turning to Indian and its championship-winner Scout FTR750. The Scout FTR750 captured the 2017 American Flat Track Manufacturer’s Championship and swept the 2017 standings with Indian’s Wrecking Crew Jared Mees, Bryan Smith and Brad Baker finishing first, second and third, respectively (14 total wins, 37 podiums and six podium sweeps)
The six privateers running the Scout FTR750 include: three-time Grand National Champion Kenny Coolbeth Jr., 2017 fifth-place finisher Jeffrey Carver (Roof Systems of Dallas, TX), Chad Cose (Indian Motorcycle of Oklahoma City), Jay Maloney (Indian Motorcycle of Springfield, MA), Additionally, flat track’s TT master Henry Wiles and two-time Grand National Champion Jake Johnson (Estenson Racing) will ride the Scout FTR750 intermittently this season.
Kenny Coolbeth will ride the Indian Scout FTR750 throughout the entire 2018 season and said: “After seeing the Scout FTR750’s capabilities last year, I couldn’t be more excited to be riding it this season. I’ve been training hard this offseason and I’m looking forward to competing this year and giving the Indian factory team some competition now that we’re all on the same bike.”
Gary Gray, Vice President – Racing, Service & Technology for Indian Motorcycle said: “We’re extremely excited to see so many talented riders turn to the FTR750 this season. We’re committed to supporting not only our factory team, but the privateers, as we have an aggressive contingency program in place that will reward these riders with performance incentives.”
Indian has committed more than $350,000 in contingency incentives, including $25,000 for a Championship, $5,000 for first-place wins, $4,000 for second-place, $3,000 for third-place finishes, and payouts for up to 10th-place finishers.
Wow. Incredible what Indian accomplished in only one year of competition.
Like or hate Polaris/Indian, they kicked the established guys @ss.
Huh, buy an antique paint shaker or buy something that works…
I love it. An American company that wants to make motorcycles.
Now if they make a street motorcycle that’s NOT a cruiser I am in. They will have my money.
The Scout FTR750, When you absolutely, positively got to beat every m*therf*cker on the track, accept no substitutes. 😉
Ok,now make one for the street!!
This is fun-no doubt about it. After last season’s results, there is a bright spotlight shining on flat track. AWESOME! Personally, I plan on hitting one of the “mile” tracks this season. Either Minneapolis or Springfield. Maybe both. Might check out a TT track too. Not sure.
Call it what ya want. The rivalry is re-ignited and for now it has played out as I kinda figured it would with Indian kickin’ it…………………HARD!
It’ll be interesting to see if/when or how HD responds in the racing world. I hope they do. I think it’d be very interesting to see something exceptionally different come out of the MoCo.
I’m also curious if any of the other manufacturers will respond to the over all drubbing by Indian.
I’d love to see the manufacturers really duke it out. It’d only be good for the industry and to me, this is one of the absolute best ways to demonstrate their engineering skills to the (young) public. Marketing at it’s finest and most intense.
Just my two cents.
Indian brought a gun to a knife fight
Quite frankly I was shocked they decided to use the little Rod platform or that a liquid cooled DOHC engine would do so poor against the others
The flat track series has been given a great big shake up and it is just getting started
Four years in a row Kawasaki won the twins title, 2016 they won the national championship for twins and singles. All of this was derived from a 650 commuter bike engine.
The majority of flat track twins are Kawasaki. Where do we get that it is a Harley and Indian dual. If and when the other brands decide to get fully involved rather than partially with factory support the game will change.
fugi, I don’t follow racing much, are you referring to a series other than the American Flat Track Manufacturer’s Championship? Thx
Fuji is spot on. Everyone is talking about it as if there are only two brands of bikes on the track? Up until last year the Kawasaki was the fastest/most consistent bike on the track. This motor coming from the 50 HP Ninja 650 platform. If more manufacturers step up it will just get better.
More manufacturers are stepping up. Triumph has offered former flat track champ Joe Kopp a ride. Ducati has been sending mixed signals but that is getter than no interest at all. Honda in the 80’s campaigned an RS750 that won consistantly, so much so that the AMA made them install restrictor plates like NASCAR to make it more fair to HD. There has even been rumors that BMW is getting ready to try flat track again. Also in the 90’s several teams had Suzuki powered flat track race bikes so I am sure they are still out there somewhere. Like this old graybeard has been saying, it is a very exciting time to be a flat track race fan!
The Kawasaki is probably a faster bike than than the Indian. Where the Indian shines is that it has a broader power band than the Kawasaki. This bit of information comes from someone who rode a well known Kawasaki.