Tyler O’Hara dials in his King of the Baggers racebike.

By Morgan Gales, motorcyclecruiser.com

Indian Motorcycle is taking its new Challenger racing. As we’ve previously announced, Tyler O’Hara will be lining up in the new AMA Drag Specialties King of the Baggers race coming this October. But with less than six weeks until the race, O’Hara and Indian’s support team had just gotten their first, and possibly only, test day on the modified Challenger—and it was raining.

Indian had been working very closely with racer Tyler O’Hara as well as the team at S&S to get the Challenger’s ergonomics, chassis, and engine all tuned up in time for last week’s practice day. A custom gas tank was fabricated underneath the custom carbon fiber cover. A carbon rear fender is shown in the pictures, as is the roughly 5-inch raised seat and custom rearset foot controls. So while the original plan was to take much of the day focused on the bike’s suspension and handling, the rain quickly put a halt to any hopes of high-speed cornering. Instead, the day was spent refining the riding position with hopes of finding a second day of testing later on.

“A lot of time was spent getting Tyler comfortable on the bike,” said Jeff Bailey, S&S’s lead project engineer. “With this whole bagger conversion thing, the handlebar setup is completely new and completely different. Trying to come up with bar and lever positions that fit where he wanted to be, along with clearing the tank and the fairing—we still have some work to do there but we got it closer for him.”

So while they were able to get the rider’s position almost perfect, there’s still some modification required. “The footpeg positioning is pretty spot on,” O’Hara said. “We’re trying to narrow the seat up and make it a little more round, just for comfort. And then handlebars—we’re still working on just getting the right setup. We got it set up in a good direction of where we want to take the bike.” But with time closing in and another test session uncertain, will heading in the right direction be enough?

The in-house suspension expert at S&S, Dave Zanotti, who is well known for his work in American Flat Track, was recruited as well, spending some time with O’Hara before he got out on the bike to go over the setup. They dropped the fork a bit, and talked about the options available. Although as we stated earlier, the high-speed cornering required to really dial in the suspension just wasn’t an option because of the weather.

Whereas vague throttle response was an issue we had with the stock Challenger, that has been addressed by the team at S&S. “It was a bit sluggish initially, so we made it more directly related to throttle position,” Bailey explained. “We are working with the OEM software for calibration work, so we have access to really everything the OEM would have in tuning.” And Indian’s team was there as well, listening to Tyler’s feedback and watching what S&S did to make the bike better—giving us hope that some of these adjustments and technology may make their way to the production line.

And as for the engine? Well of course they’ve worked on that too, though details are a bit more obscure. “There’s more power,” O’Hara said, comparing the race engine to the stock Challenger. “We’re actually going to try to soften it up a little bit down low, just to make it a little more rideable, but I can guarantee we’re going to have one of the faster bikes in the race.”

The other key pieces of the puzzle here are weight and lean angle. The team was able to reduce the Challenger’s weight from 805 pounds to under 600. By raising the chassis, moving the foot controls, lifting the seat, building a custom exhaust, and raising up the saddlebags, the lean angle has been increased to 58 degrees—a massive improvement over stock.

Whether O’Hara will have another day to test the racebike is yet to be seen, but having spent time taking the stock Challenger around Laguna Seca, his confidence is clear.

“The way the bike feels right now—we got something for them,” O’Hara said. “We know the track and I have a lot of seat time on the stock bike, so I understand how to ride it, and what gears I like to ride. The racebike is even easier, faster, and has better suspension, so I think we’re in a really good spot right now.”