VOL. 54 ISSUE 6 FEBRUARY 14, 2017 P81
STORY BY ANDREA WILSON
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF AMERICAN FLAT TRACK/MITCH FRIEDMAN,
DAVE HOENIG, ANDREA WILSON AND HARLEY-DAVIDSON MUSEUM
Motorcycle may have thrown its hat into the ring of flat track,
Harley-Davidson has no plans of relinquishing its role as the leader
sport. We chat with Harley's Marketing boss Scott Beck and
Flat Track Team Principle Terry Vance from Vance & Hines
about their strategy in this new era of American Flat Track.
I
f you want to ruffle some feath-
ers at Harley-Davidson, ask
about its response to Indian
Motorcycle's splashy return to
American Flat Track racing. Before
the dust settled on the 2016 sea-
son finale at the Santa Rosa Mile,
Indian swooped in to take three of
the sport's top riders and two of its
top tuners, leaving the question:
What is Harley going to do?
Harley's response came
months later at X Games Aspen:
a three-rider team (Kenny Cool-
beth, Jake Johnson and Bran-
don Johnson) will go up against
Indian's three (Bryan Smith, Jared
Mees and Brad Baker). Harley will
arm its three factory racers with its
all-new liquid-cooled fuel-injected
V-twin XG750R to go up against
Indian's liquid-cooled fuel-injected
V-Twin Scout FTR750.
Is this a counter move to In-
dian's first play? Not from Harley-
Davidson's perspective.
"I guess I wouldn't character-
ize it as countering Indian at all,"
Harley-Davidson's Global Director
of Marketing Scott Beck said. "I
would characterize it as almost
in reverse. Indian's once again
imitating and flattering Harley-
Davidson by trying to rip a page
out of our book that hasn't missed
any chapters for the last hundred
plus years."
With all due respect to Indian,
its return after 50 years made
headlines for a reason. It marks
the return of one of the greatest
rivalries in motorsports, a rivalry
of the homegrown variety befitting
a new era of American Flat Track.
Although Harley is used to
being the top dog, it welcomes
the return of that rivalry.
HARLEY SPEAKS
