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/875372
INDIAN MOTORCYCLE AND BONNEVILLE Feature P96 was aborted on safety grounds. With similar conditions forecast for the remainder of the event the group decided to call it a week and pack the transporter two days early. It was disappointing, but as Lee Munro so elegantly puts it: "We had to go out there and try something, because to say, 'it's not worth it, it's shit,' just means you're not going to know something that you could have. So, I'm 100 percent behind the idea that we went out and did what we did. We may not have had the results we were after, but piloting a modified Indian Scout on the same salt as my great Uncle Burt will forever be one of my most-cherished experiences." Gary Gray was philosophical about the week. With beer in hand and a glint in eye, he remarked, "We didn't have ideal condi- tions this week. We went a bit slower but still I think we paid a good tribute to Burt and what he did. My personal feeling is we need to give back to the sport. The sport gives me my job. It gives all of us an income. We need to give back to the sport of motorcycling through races and events like this and do something to get people excited and back out to our tracks on motorcycles." ONE FOR THE BOOKS Indian and their PR crew from The Brand Amp capped off the weekend with a special screening of The World's Fastest Indian for the Bonneville spectators under floodlights on the very salt Burt Munro used to set his legend. Presented by Burt's son John, Lee and the film's Australian director, Roger Don- aldson, the feel-good feature gave everyone the warm and fuzzies that comes from honor- ing history, as well as a few too many beers. "I've seen the movie countless times. But to watch it with Speed Week attendees, the The Bike Burt Didn't Build The bike Lee Munro used to set his top speed of just over 191 mph would have made his great uncle smile. With the same name on the tank—albeit a modern version— the bike used by Lee was an extensively modified version of the Scout you or I could buy at the dealer. "We started the build in December, at least formulating the idea for the build," says Wayne Colden, Project Leader for the Spirit of Munro. "We started with a repurposed Scout frame. We pulled it out of a snowbank in January and started the project. We had some engine development work that was being done on the Scout and we chose that engine because it had some higher poten- tial. All the bottom end is stock. The cylinders are different of course, so it can get the power requirements that we need." "We worked with Wayne Alexander and Lee Munro from New Zealand on some of the details as far as trying to carry it over, as well as Burt's son John Munro, who was critical to this project and carry over some of the design features of Burt's early bikes. We did that primarily with the tail section— the same style lines with some of his early bikes. "There are various parts of the Victory Project 156 in this bike, the cylinder heads are a similar design, but the base of the motor is stock. "We chose an aerodynamic fairing to get to the speeds that we wanted. Of course, Burt, he was running in a full-on streamliner class and we wanted to run in partial streamline. We chose an Air-Tech fairing off the shelf and made it fit the Scout. We have vertical handlebars and some special triple clamps. Again, we had them sitting on the shelf, so that was an easy choice. "We wanted to go hard tail from the very beginning, but we had a couple different designs where we would have the option to switch in shocks. We were having some trouble with the mountings for the shocks, so ended up with a hard tail, which was we wanted to do anyway. "The wheels come from Roland Sands Design." Parts of the Victory Project 156 engine were used in the making of the Spirit of Munro challenger.