Off-the-shelf King of The Bagger racer with a monster price tag, Gary Inman is in awe
We are living through an era that will be looked back on as fondly as 50- and 60-year-olds look back at the AMA Superbike-era of the early-1980s. But instead people getting misty-eyed reminiscing about Lawson Kawasakis and nerding out on Cooley GS Thous and Spencer CB750s, the objects of obsession will be Indian and Harley King of the Baggers (KOTB) racers. The race action they serve up is so wild, the bikes so improbably cool in spite of themselves, that motorcycle enthusiasts will look back on these handful of seasons with awe. I don't doubt it for a second. Why do I say a handful of seasons? Surely it can't sustain this level of interest and investment for long, before going the way of supermoto. Can it?
The 2023 KOTB season kicked off at Daytona over the weekend, and these MotoGP-spec Brontosauruses battled high up the banking. I find that hard to compute. It wasn't so long ago that the authorities made the Daytona 200 into a Supersport 600 race, because it was too dangerous (it was thought) to run Superbikes for 200 miles on the banking. I understand tyre tech has moved on, and the baggers aren't covering 200 miles, but still, they're baggers! Clocking 180mph. On the banking.
And that bring us to this bike: the Indian Challenger RR.
This factory-built, limited edition racer has been created to commemorate Tyler O'Hara's 2022 KOTB championship win. Indian Motorcycle are releasing 29 of them, the number chosen to tie to O'Hara's racer digit.
The spec is fulsome:
● S&S® 2-1 race exhaust
● 17" race rims
● Dunlop® race tires
● S&S® billet adjustable triple clamps
● Ohlins® FGR250 forks
● TTX Ohlins® rear shock
● S&S® chain drive conversion
● Carbon Fiber saddle bags
● Fiberglass rear fender
● Saddlemen raised race seat
● S&S® adjustable fairing mount
● Aero headlight insert
● Aero windshield ● S&S® belly pan
● S&S® rear set foot controls
● S&S® camshafts
● 112 CID big bore cylinder/piston kit
● S&S® air intake system with 78mm throttle body
● CNC ported cylinder heads
● S&S® Billet adjustable rocker arms
● Hayes® rear caliper, EBC rear rotor, SBS pads
● Brembo® M4 front calipers, 330mm rotors, SBS pads
● S&S® automatic chain tensioner
● Maxx full adjustable ECM
● AIM DL2 data logger/dash
● Quickshifter kit
● S&S® billet clutch cover
● S&S® adjustable handlebars
● S&S® race modified swingarm
The Challenger RR is only available in the following markets: USA, Australia, New Zealand, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Japan, and obviously, only while stocks last. The UK price has not been released yet, but the US price is, wait for it, a stratospheric, palindromic $92,229.
See the action from the MotoAmerica Daytona races at MotoAmerica YouTube.