SuperBike Logo
BikesClothingAccessoriesRacingFeaturesIndustry NewsAdviceOffersShop
SuperBike

The Harley v Indian wars erupt once more

SUPER HOOLIGAN Part 1

Road racing in the USA at National level is currently enjoying a purple patch, with MotoAmerica’s stacked grids for a wide variety of contrasting classes delivering nail-bitingly close, handlebar-clashing, all-action competition – even between rival teammates! The result has been a sharp spike in racetrack attendance by paying spectators, as well as in logins by online race fans – and especially so now that the century-old warfare between Indian and Harley on dirt ovals has finally been transposed to what in America is still termed by many such followers as ‘pavement racing’.

Naked glory. Tyler O’Hara gets down to business on the factory Indian

For this two-wheeled equivalent of NASCAR has sold heaps of seats at MotoAmerica events, something that would never have happened without the presence on the race card of the King Of The Baggers (KOTB) class and its junior sidekick – well, in engine displacement terms, at least – Super Hooligan National Championship racing (SHNC). Between them, the two categories are generating hundreds of millions of online clicks every year, and on YouTube, together they’re fourth in terms of engagement behind Formula 1, MotoGP and NASCAR – they’re even ahead of Supercross!

Both categories were essentially the creation of the fusion king of custom cool, former AMA 250GP road racing champion turned trend-setting designer Roland Sands. He’s justly acclaimed as the leading exponent of the crossover culture between choppers and racebikes which so many other designers have since picked up on, moving the two-wheeled Custom scene from a backstreet art form to a mainstream element of modern-day motorcycle culture, with bikes that steer and go and stop and handle better than OK in real world riding, besides being a blank canvas for designers to express themselves on. 

“I like the idea of racing things that were never meant to be raced,” says Roland, 49 (the custom king who once took a CR500 motocrosser, turned it into a road racer with clip-ons etc and then took it to a motorcross track for action pics!). “Baggers and Hooligans came at MotoAmerica from different directions, but I guess RSD [Roland Sands Design] was involved in making them both happen, from building early days Bagger racers back in 2020 as a kind of Covid peace dividend, to getting the Super Hooligans up and running.  

“In fact, the whole Super Hooligan thing came long before that out of dirt track, when we’d put a 21-inch front tire on a Harley Softtail, and go ride the shit out of it at Costa Mesa Speedway’s dirt oval. This was the most fun that I have personally ever had on two wheels, still to this day! 

“So, since 2017 we’ve had a Super Hooligan National Championship dirt series, but then we took what was originally this kind of lowbrow flat track theme, and with Indian’s support we turned it into a road racing category for bikes that would never normally see the inside of a race track.”

Starting in 2022 with a four-round Super Hooligan National Championship that led to an eight-race series in 2023, the Mission Foods-sponsored series has expanded this season to ten rounds of SHNC road racing at five events staged across the USA. 

“The season kicked off in March on Daytona Speedway’s high bankings, before heading on to The Ridge in Washington State, Laguna Seca in California, then Mid-Ohio, ending with a grand finale in September at COTT/Circuit of The Americas in Austin, Texas. 

Bobby Fong (50) leads Tyler O’Hara (10) and Cory West out wide on the Daytona infield. That’s Jeremy McWilliams on #99

Defending champion, Indian factory rider Tyler O’Hara, has won both the MotoAmerica Super Hooligan road race series run so far on his S&S-tuned FTR, with former teammate and ex-GP great Jeremy McWilliams runner-up last year after the duo took lumps out of each other in the final turn at the COTA decider last September. 

Jezza decided that with his 60th birthday on April 6 maybe it was time to step back from full-time factory road racing. But there’s still a major international element in both SHNC and KOTB racing this year, with reigning three-time Australian Superbike champion Troy Herfoss, 37, joining the same-aged O’Hara in the factory Indian team for both classes, and after winning the 2008 AMA Supermoto Championship, this particular Aussie is well versed in racing in the USA.

Indian Motorcycle’s involvement as the SHNC series’ title sponsor has extended to not only winning two championship crowns with race developed versions of its FTR1200 60° V-twin hotrod, but to marking those victories by teaming up with RSD/Roland Sands Design to make a limited-edition Super Hooligan streetbike inspired by the run-what-ya-brung race series. 

The so-called FTR x RSD Super Hooligan unveiled for 2024 is built on the Indian FTR R Carbon platform, and is limited to only 300 units for global sale, 150 of them in the USA with prices starting at $18,499, and each bike bearing an individually numbered commemorative tank console. It features fully adjustable Öhlins suspension with an upside-down 43mm fork and rear cantilever shock. Also included are twin 320mm Brembo front brakes, a four-inch touchscreen display with Bluetooth connectivity, and an Akrapovič silencer and heat shield, plus Gilles Tooling adjustable rear sets, oil cap, radiator cap, and bar-end weights.

The bike features Black Metallic bodywork with Super Hooligan race graphics, a red frame with matching wheels with gold accents, and Indian Motorcycle Racing’s No. 1 Championship logo on the front and side number plates. There are more logos from team sponsors on the rear seat cowl, and additional graphics for the radiator shroud, front fender, and front forks are available as options. Check it all out on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3TIXESC9lU

Andy DiBrino was third overall in the 2023 series on his KTM

“Super Hooligan has always been about more than just racing,” says Roland Sands “It’s about pushing boundaries and having a blast riding motorcycles with your friends. Far from the full-fairing machines you normally see on the racetrack, a Super Hooligan bike has effortless attitude and a custom aesthetic, with an exposed powertrain. So when Indian Motorcycle approached us to co-design an Indian FTR for consumers, it was a natural fit and something we’re very excited to be a part of.” 

SHNC rules are deliberately kept vague, so as to open the class up to as wide a variety as possible of motorcycles that were never really meant to be raced, albeit may have sporty pretensions. They must use stock frames, have no bodywork and last season liquid-cooled bikes couldn’t weigh less than 397lb/180kg in the state they finished a race or qualifying, including all remaining liquids (350lb/159kg for air-cooled V-twins, which are also permitted to modify the frames). 

That was lowered to 377lb/171kg for water-pumpers in 2023. Minimum displacement is 750cc and while there’s no upper limit, maximum horsepower is 125bhp, and for added spice, electric motorcycles are also eligible with the same minimum weight limits as the liquid-cooled twins. Good luck in getting an e-bike to scale anywhere near that figure with sufficient battery capacity to be competitive at the end of even an eight-lap Laguna Seca race, let alone a six-lapper on the Daytona bankings! 

In fact, 2023 saw the line-up of bikes comprising the grid considerably more variegated than in 2022, with the so-far dominant Indian FTR’s supremacy seriously threatened by the KTM 890, joined by the BMW RnineT, and various Ducati V-twin models. But a key player was the more competitive of the two electric motorcycles on the grid (a Zero was the other). Stefano Mesa’s Italian Energica scored the first-ever e-podium in Open class racing against ICE rivals with second place in Race 1 at COTA, after McWilliams bit the dust in a last-corner confrontation with teammate O’Hara. 

Sunshine. Palm trees. And Hooligans. Tyler O’Hara gets expressive at Daytona

Mesa finished fourth in the final points table, while third overall with five rostrum finishes putting him just four points behind McWilliams at season’s end was Andy DiBrino on a self-sponsored KTM 890, with one of those a rare non-Indian race victory at The Ridge, when both O’Hara and McWilliams were disqualified for an illegal handlebar shape/height. Yes, really – Super Hooligan Technical Regulations state that: “No clip-ons that have been converted to top-mounted handlebars are permitted. The end of the handlebar must sit above the top plane of the upper triple clamp.”

Electric Hooligan! Stefano Mesa puts his Italian-built Energica among the ICE bikes. He was fourth overall in last year’s series

That protest was filed by H-D rider Cory West’s Team Saddlemen, entrant of the only Harley-Davidson on the grid last year, an eight-valve liquid-cooled Revolution Max-powered Pan America ADV which must adopt two velocity stacks and the more restrictive airbox of the Sportster S to keep a lid on its stock 150 bhp output. This year has seen more Harleys on the grid and more recent visits to Victory Lane for them.

“If there was one brand we wanted to add to the mix, it was Harley,” says series godfather Roland Sands. “Obviously, they bring a massive audience, and it’s also the one place where they can improve the Pan America platform in a serious way. The only way to really expand what your platform is capable of is if you go racing, and we’re seeing that with Indian and the FTR, and on the Bagger side with Harley and the Road Glide, and Indian and the Challenger, and now Harley is trying to achieve than in Super Hooligan with the Pan America. Harley versus Indian, air-cooled versus water-cooled, electric versus ICE – I want to see all different styles of bikes racing together.” 

And that’s indeed what’s happening…..

Words by Alan Cathcart. Photos: Indian Motorcycle and Brian J. Nelson (MotoAmerica race action)

The Harley v Indian wars erupt once more | SuperBike