Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1392185
No one wants to see them pack up their trucks and take their money out of the paddock. Unduly punishing them for de- signing an outstanding race bike and investing heavily in flat track is not something Progressive AFT wants to do. Yet at the same time, that must be weighed against the overall vitality of the series, which Indian stands to directly benefit from, as well. Further complicating the mat- ter is the fact that, even though the FTR750 was initially viewed as having a finite shelf life, Indian doesn't have a realistic path toward building a production-based racer in the foreseeable future consider- ing current market realities. Un- like the Japanese and European manufacturers, the Indian brand is not particularly well positioned to capitalize on the trend toward middleweight twin-cylinder sport nakeds and sport bikes that make for ideal flat-track bases. In terms of Progressive AFT's motorcycle. And what happened was, when they get 20 guys out there racing them, they get a lot of feedback. When you've got two or three guys, it's almost impossible to catch up." As a result, a class intended to become production-based is now the opposite due to the dominance of a single platform. More than one insider has recently made the comparison to a MotoGP bike dominating what was essentially intended to be WorldSBK on dirt. And in fact, Progressive AFT even had to introduce an entirely new class, AFT Production Twins, for dirt track's World Superbike analogs to flee to. DELICATE BALANCE There's a very simple solution to this, and it's also the only one currently off the table: banning the FTR750 outright. Indian has shown to be deeply committed to the sport and a dedicated series stakeholder. modern-take on the decades- old XR design, the FTR750 proved wildly successful in short order. That became true to the point that any team or rider who hoped to have a realistic chance of competing felt compelled to make the not-insignificant investment in their own FTR750, which only entrenched the emerging issue. The few holdovers that have tried to battle against the Indi- ans have suffered largely similar fates, most visibly when the Vance & Hines/Harley-Davidson Factory Racing Team ended the manufacturer's high-profile involvement as a works effort fol- lowing a(nother) difficult season in 2020. Team owner Terry Vance said, "We tried everything that we could possibly try to make our bikes competitive at the top level, and we never solved the mystery. The Indian is just a very well designed and balanced FEATURE I AMERICAN FLAT TRACK RULE CHANGES P86