Indian Motorcycle announced the three finalists for The Wrench: Scout Bobber Build Off, a custom motorcycle competition that spotlights amateurs who build bikes purely for the love of turning a wrench. Following a two-week fan vote, the three highest vote getters include a mechanical engineer for NASA (Alfredo Juarez), an OSHA safety inspector (PJ Grakauskas) and a mining equipment engineer (Christian Newman). Each have won a 2018 Scout Bobber and $10,000 from Indian Motorcycle to go towards their build.
All three builds will be unveiled on August 5th at the Buffalo Chip during the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. A fan vote will determine the grand prize winner, who will receive $10,000 and be announced 2 weeks following the unveil in Sturgis. See below for more information on each of the finalists, their concepts, and link with images.
Alfredo Juarez
Alfredo has had a passion for motorcycles and their inner workings his entire life. Always tinkering and welding, he bought a MIG welder in college and started building his own tools and experimenting with metal fabrication. Now as a Mechanical Engineer for NASA, he continues to build custom motorcycles and tinker on his projects as a pastime and form of expression. Alfredo’s expertise is used on some of the most advanced projects in the world, and he wants to try his hand at a Scout Bobber.
Christian Newman
The devil is often in the details when you look at a bike Christian has built, and it’s all details. Spending his days engineering mining equipment, he has access to a huge variety of tools and the expertise to use them. While a couple of the bikes he’s built in the past have seen some media attention, he fits the spirit of this competition to the T. He wants to utilize the Scout Bobber’s dynamic chassis with some old-school custom components and raw metal fabrication.
PJ Grakauskas
As a family man from Ohio, PJ splits his time between work, his kids, and his 10×12 shed in the backyard. While all of his neighbors know he’s the guy to go to with your internal combustion problems, he’s been dreaming of the opportunity for a personal project like this for ages. For his build, PJ wants to build a race-inspired full-fairing Scout Bobber—making almost every component by hand, in-house.
PJ’s concept looks a bit like a chopper ran into the back of a tracker.
Good by Samantha.
Look forward to seeing these completed. 3 very different approaches and the concepts sketches of each look pretty cool
I can’t imagine what all the other entries look like? Maybe there are only three?
DOES NO ONE KNOW WHAT A BOBBER LOOKS LIKE ANYMORE?
1) Modern street board tracker
2) Dressed up STOCK cruiser
3) Some kind of retro café racer sports bike which the seat has fallen off of.
Gotta go with what dick said.
The build starts with an Indian Scout Bobber and is customized as the builder sees fit. Perhaps the title should be “Build Off Competition of a Scout Bobber” so it doesn’t confuse readers. Obviously, the participants were not confused.
Dick, I believe Scout Bobber is the name of the model that they are using as a starting point, not a description of the style of the finished custom.
This black PJ Grakauskas is very attractive for him. I am waiting very much for the entry with the final effect of this interesting project. Dude is mega ambitious trying to do everything alone and at home. Such a motorcycle is something. He will be 100% sure that there is only one such in the world. Regards