Indian Board Track Racing in 1921

Chairmen of the Board

When you think Indian motorcycle racing, I’m guessing it involves a Scout FTR750 on a flat track. Nowadays, Indian motorcycle racing looks like this.

It was not always so. Back in the 1920s, when Indian Motorcycle Company ruled the race tracks of America, the world was a very different place. For one thing, colors hadn’t been invented yet. Nor had sounds. All of that came in the 1930s when Hollywood invented them to make the world a better place. Not everyone got the word, though.

But the rise of the most brutal Soviet dictator in history and the deaths of millions on his orders is neither here nor there. We’re talking about motorcycle racing.
Specifically, board track racing. This slice of history took place at the Los Angeles Motor Speedway on April 24th, 1921. Racers ran at over 100 mph all day long, in a field comprising some of the great motorcycle racing legends of the time, like Ray Weishaar, Jim Davis, Otto Walker, and Shrimp Burns. This was the Wild West era of factory motorcycle racing, with Indian, Harley-Davidson, and Excelsior duking it out the track with more aggression than sense (much of the time).

By this time, Shrimp Burns had jumped ship from the H-D Wrecking Crew to jockey iron for the Wigwam. Speeds averaged over 100 mph throughout the day, on a very different track in a very different Los Angeles from the ones we know now.