| INDIAN
741 FLATHEAD SETS RECORD
June 14th, 2009 El Mirage, CA
When he traded for a used 1941 Indian surplus
motor back in the 80's, Dave Iversen of Iversen Originals, tucked it away
on a shelf. It sat for twenty-five years, waiting to be pulled out and
put to use. Iversen had been landspeed racing for about four years, and
while his wife Jill was happy to be his pit crew, she was itching to have
a racer of her own.
With that in mind, inspiration for the little
30.50ci Indian flathead came together. Indian built this 741 model motor
for the military, the focus was on dependability, not speed. Not a likely
candidate for a landspeed machine with its low compression and small bore.
Starting with the surplus engine and tranny, the balance of the bike was
hand fabricated by Iversen or assembled from used parts. Little was done
to the motor. They had the original valves re-seated and used a set of
NOS military surplus rings straight out of Cosmoline. Even by putting the
stock motor in a purpose built race chassis, it'd be a stretch to beat
the existing class record of over 101mph.
The first run was in July of '07 at El Mirage,
the dry lakebed in So. Cal. Not expecting much for speed, the thought was
for Jill to get used to the Indian's laydown riding position, and handshift
three speed tranny before modifying the motor for speed. They were surprised
when she managed 91 mph running the bone stock flathead on gas.
With time and money constraints, they ran
the '08 season with the same motor, no high speed magic done to it. The
last two races of '08, Jill switched to the fuel class, hoping for extra
speed with the nitromethane and alcohol mix. Seeing no improvement in speed
was disappointing, but the motor sounded so strong they still felt the
possibility was there. They were back out in '09 with the same motor. At
the El Mirage meet in May, they knew the bike was dialed in where it needed
to be on fuel. It sounded strong through first and second gears, but fell
off sharply in third.
Time to re-gear. Adding 6 more teeth to the
rear sprocket, they headed to El Mirage for the June 14th meet. For the
first time, the little Scout showed strength in third gear. Tucked in tight,
a mere 28" from the lakebed surface, she squeaked the Indian into the records
with a speed of 102.348 mph. The old advertisement of Indian Motocycle
company said, "You Can't Wear Out an Indian Scout". As it's said, so far,
so good.
###
Jill |
I have been racing my '41,
741 Scout, for two years with a King clutch
and just set a record (finally!) at El Mirage on June 14th. The old record
was 101mph, I ran 102mph, just enough to get the record. I ran in the fuel
class using nitromethane and alcohol, real smooth run. Clutch has held
up nice. Looking forward to see what I can do in July at El Mirage.
Jill Iversen |
| Here is the Bonneville
report from Jillian:
Dave set two new records on our first two
runs of the meet. We knew the bike could do better so with tuning changes
we went on to up the speed on those two records. We ran in the vintage
fuel class and partial streamline vintage fuel class. (We run in the 1000cc
class due to being a flathead.)
Entry 746 A-VF (old 110.360), (new first
121.955), Final 138.170.
Entry 1746 APS-VF (old 119.929), (new first
120.894), Final 134.572. |
 |
