Hooligan Race Bike Build

When Australian stunt legend Dean Ross announced Aus Hooligan X at Bairnsdale Moto Plex on 4 November I got excited and signed up straight away. There was no way I was going to miss it. All I needed next was a bike, but not just any bike. It had to look the part and invoke the same feelings I get when I look at the Flat Trackers racing in the US. So our 2018 hooligan race bike build quickly became all I could think about for a while.

I selected the Harley-Davidson Street Rod 750 as the starting point. It has plenty of power and doesn’t weigh a lot in comparison to other bikes. We picked the bike up a month before the race, which meant I had a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it in.

I’ve always wanted to have a go at flat track racing and with it being big in the States at the moment it’s never been more front of mind.

First up, I started stripping the bike of all its standard parts. Then I measured up and fitted the 19” spoked wheels. I had to make up wheel spacers and have the sprocket spacer CNC machined. Once I had the wheels in the bike, I fitted the Shinko Flat Track tyres to the rims.

Then I started on the aluminium tail section and seat pan. I hand made the tail section, so I could achieve the look and fitment I wanted. Once that was finished all the tins were sent off to Marc at Sydney Custom Spraypainting.

Next, I moved onto the exhaust system. I wanted to build something that sat high up to get that flat track style and had performance benefits from tuned header lengths. To achieve the correct length and shape of the exhaust headers I used the pie cutting technique. So I spent a lot of time on the exhaust. But it was well worth it as the system looks great. Meanwhile, we machined the end cap for the muffler out of billet aluminium.

I removed the front brake because the rules state you have to, and you wouldn’t want to be grabbing a hand full of front brake while racing. I also fitted up some MX handlebars, made a number board and mounting bracket and fabricated some fork guards.

Our hooligan race bike build took shape after three weeks of midnight finishes

Last thing to do was fit the paintwork and add my race numbers. James was stunned when I came back to the shop with a roll of vinyl instead of pre-cut numbers. So, at 2am the morning before we hit the road James and I sat there in the workshop bleary eyed and hand cut the race numbers out.

Our 2018 hooligan race bike build was complete. Now to put it to the ultimate test on the track.