THE BACKWOODS COLLECTION This comprehensively restored 1915 Indian Twin Board Track Racer is from a French museum collection and is one of approximately 25 such board track Indians built in this configuration. It was fully and beautifully restored by Xavier Parent and represents a golden age for Indian, when the brand dominated the world in racing and sales. While the factory raced 8-valve motors from 1911, it also raced the F-head 61 CI (1000cc) Big Twins, using a close-coupled racing frame and rigid racing forks, with a single-speed all-chain drive, no brakes, a Hedstrom carburetor and Bosch magneto. Indians were raced from their very beginnings, starting with the first production models in 1902, as company founder George Hendee had been a champion bicycle racer, with 302 wins from 309 starts on the dangerous “high-wheelers” of the 1880s. He quit racing in 1886 to manufacture the new “safety” bicycle design, with equal- sized wheels front and rear. Bicycle racing was the most popular sport in America in the 1880s-’90s, and tens of thousands crowded the stands at road races and track events held on banked wooden Velodromes or “board tracks.” In the 1890s, motorized cycle pacers made quite a noisy show, and allowed cyclists to build up terrific speeds. These were often the first motorized vehicle ever seen by the spectators. These early “pacers” were plagued by troubles and often disappointed fans by breaking down or catching fire. George Hendee looked for a reliable pacer for his “Silver King” bicycle racing team. Oscar Hedstrom was also a bicycle racer, and an engineer, and he redesigned the ubiquitous DeDion-type engine in 1899. Hedstrom’s prototype engine worked very well, mostly because he’d also designed his own carburetor, which really worked—it was the best in the world in 1899. George Hendee saw Hedstrom’s reliable pacers and approached him in the fall of 1900 with the idea of producing motorized bicycles. By May 25, 1901, their first prototype was climbing the steepest hills in Springfield, Massachusetts, and two more were built that year. They used all-chain drive on their machines, a legacy of their racing heritage, and real production began in 1902, under the brand name “Indian.” The production machines looked remarkably like the prototypes, which proved the rightness of that first design. In 1908, Indian offered its first racing machine—the Torpedo Tank single-cylinder racer, one of the first catalog-offered racing motorcycles in the U.S. By 1911, the Indian factory racing team used exotic 8-Valve machines, but privateers used the standard F-head singles and twins with great success. Indians were lucky on European tracks too, where they peaked with a 1-2-3 sweep at the Isle of Man TT in 1911 using two-speed F-head racers. This 1915 Indian Board Track Racer hails from the absolute peak of Indian’s international prowess, when it was the largest motorcycle factory in the world. It’s a glorious racing motorcycle with European provenance, which was a happy hunting ground for the factory, with a huge number of international wins in the 1910s, from the Isle of Man and Brooklands to Grands Prix and track events across Europe. NO RESERVE S102 1915 INDIAN BOARD TRACK RACER
