Two Harley-Davidson XR750 in Thunderbike 2025

In the American Flat track series this year is either a beginning of an new era or maybe an exception in history cause this year they don’t allowed purpose built bikes. Due to that new rule the stock factory built bikes will increase in this serie and also have a go on the podiums. A fair rule if you consider that more brands will put money in to AFT when they now have a fare chance, having the Indians and the XR750’s out of their way. In the nordic regions the trend is slightly the opposite, so far we have not seen many Indians but the iconic XR750 seems to gain new riders in spite of the few produced during its 50 years. At the moment we know about three XR750’s aiming for Viking Cup this year and two of them already signed up and we will not be too surprised to se the third one at the tracks when season starts.

The XR750’s has been built since 1970, at first as a Sportster based race version but already in 1972 the went from iron heads to aluminum though the heating of this aircooled engine made the first Iron versions not lasting very long on the American mile tracks. From 1972 until what we belive 2018 the bike was the far most winnigest bike in flat track ever with as Iconic riders as Jay Springsteen, Chris Carr, Brad Baker and Jared Mees behind the bars.

In 2018 Indian introduced it’s FTR750 and that was the beginning of the end of the old faithful. Still in spite of the Indian being a great bike with all the features of a modern race bike the few XR’s remaing were still competetive and both Jeffrey Carver #23 and Sammy Halbert #69 made some impressive races all the way until the last AFT races in 2024.

The XR750’s were never sold to the public. To get your hands on one you either had to buy the engine kit from the factory and assemble it and put it in a frame yourself or get your hands on a ready built bike on the second hand market. You can still find them now and than but mostly in US. We know about two handfull in Europe and about five in our own region, and if we can have three of them at our northern tracks this year it would be so cool and a celebration to both flat track and the most iconic flat track bike ever built.

This years Thunderbike also includes a couple of classic Yamahas, Rotax-bikes as well as the new comer in the class Finn #138 Aku Lantto on a KTM.