Why King of the Baggers Racing Is So Popular

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Kevin Cameron has been writing about motorcycles for nearly 50 years, first for <em>Cycle magazine</em> and, since 1992, for <em>Cycle World</em>. (Robert Martin/)

Roadracing purists are puzzled by the inclusion of King of the Baggers and Super Hooligan classes in their sacred sport, as they are now at particular MotoAmerica events. A roadracing series is a business and its product is entertainment. If people are insufficiently entertained, they stay home and the series earns a loss and ceases operations. Know this right now: For whatever reason, spectators love these new and—yes, let’s admit it—incongruous classes for big bellowing heavy bikes, engineered into able racers.

King of the Baggers bikes are to the traditional classes Superbike and Supersport as thundering NASCAR V-8 “stock cars” are to winged formula cars

When a visiting group of Harley-Davidson higher-ups saw the powerful fan response to KOTB at Laguna Seca (hallowed site of so many international FIM Grand Prix and World Superbike championship events), Willie G. Davidson enunciated, “This is where we should be.”

Is King of the Baggers the NASCAR of motorcycle racing? It’s become massively popular with fans, manufacturers, and sponsors. (Brian J. Nelson/)

Rules for KOTB recall the early days of US AMA Superbike, when fans so loved Eddie Lawson, Freddie Spencer, Wes Cooley Jr., and other stars, wrestling with high-bar heavyweights that were weaving, wobbling, and sliding. Even the conservative old AMA realized production bikes needed help in the form of “Front forks may be altered or replaced. Swingarms may be altered or replaced. Wheels and brakes may be altered or replaced.”

Those were really safety rules—riders need the predictable performance of race-bred running gear that has the designed-in adjustability required to adapt to individual circuits. Also similar is short race distances—for King of the Baggers, typically half the number of laps run in Superbike. AMA ran short Superbike races in the mid- to late ‘70s for the most basic of reasons: to ensure that some bikes would be still running at the end. The finish is the high point of every race.

Related: Why The Harley-Davidson vs. Indian Rivalry In American Flat Track Hasn’t Lived Up To The Hype

Cost limits are set for pricier items and a team introducing a freshly designed part is required to offer it for sale within six weeks. KOTB rules allow Harley’s Road Glide to be powered by an M-8 45-degree V-twin of up to 131ci (2,147cc), redlined at 7,000. The result is said to be 155–165 hp, enough to get the substantial 620-pound minimum weight around MotoAmerica circuits at lap times only four seconds shy of Superbike.

MotoAmerica has made a long journey to its present classes. US AMA roadracing had decades of a golden age of factory participation, with factory contingency programs guaranteeing a steady flow of talent from regional racing. US roadracing worked: American riders like Kenny Roberts, Freddie Spender, Wayne Rainey, and Kevin Schwantz dominated world GP racing 1978–1993. When AMA transferred race operations to the Daytona-affiliated Daytona Motorsports Group (DMG) a combination of radical change and “misadventure” called everything into question after 2008–09. That period of hand-wringing ended when operations were taken over by a new organization, MotoAmerica, in 2015. It consisted of Wayne Rainey and financial backers who were also motorcycle enthusiasts. The problem seemed simple. US roadracing had stalled, but based on its previous long history of success, surely all it needed was a shot from a set of financial-managerial jumper cables. According to this appealingly simple theory, racing would then arise like Lazarus and resume its former strengths.

Every bit as trick as a MotoAmerica Superbike. (Brian J. Nelson/)

That could not happen, and for a variety of reasons. The US economy crashed in 2008, costing many Americans half their savings and slashing sales of new motorcycles. Deeply offended by DMG practices, American Honda then-CEO Ray Blank determined that his company would never return. Veteran race-goers could in many cases no longer justify the travel costs of attending events. Consumer tastes in motorcycles were changing.

Factory participation shrank and contingency programs were curtailed. American riders ceased to star in world GP racing.

In 2015, I spoke with a soon-to-retire longtime Honda manager who told me, “The racing department is gone. The race parts have been given away and the space reallocated. The experienced people have left. The trucks are gone. No, wait; I think there’s one, sitting behind a building someplace. But most important is the personnel changes. Nearly all the old-timers who came to Honda from strong motorcycle backgrounds are gone now. Their replacements are mostly marketing people, to whom the idea of racing as a sales tool makes no sense.”

In this new world, the task of a racing series is to 1) deliver entertainment, and 2) try to find activities that grow relationships with manufacturers. MotoAmerica has recognized this, so its 2023 classes include not only Superbike, Supersport, and Twins (which has the most entries) but also classes for entry-level riders and women rider/builders, and the aforementioned classes added by popular demand and factory interest, King of the Baggers and Super Hooligans (with respect to the latter, I hear Harley is seeking homologation for the Pan America).

Consider this. The two major classes in MotoAmerica—the supposedly “pure” Superbike and Supersport—arose not from the blue-blazered retired gents of the FIM, but from informal and local racing of new types of motorcycles by adventurous riders. The beginnings of Superbike were raiders and builders trying to soup up the new literbikes of the 1970s. When the factories (and later the AMA) saw how popular this racing was becoming, the stage was set for Superbike to become the premier US roadracing class in 1985.

H-D’s race baggers feature a huge investment in engineering and testing. (Brian J. Nelson/)

Same with Supersport. When Japan saw in the early 1980s that good handling could sell bikes (Honda Interceptor, Suzuki GSX-R, Kawasaki Ninjas, Yamaha Seca), regional racing clubs created classes for those bikes—minimally modified. They were so successful at bringing riders into the sport that soon the AMA adopted them as national Supersport classes—600, 750, and 1100.

This is the right way to grow new classes—to see what people are building and racing locally, and then to build on that. Such classes may not last—Battle of the Twins became very popular for a time, then devolved into a Ducati consolation event and was discontinued. The Harley 883 class burst on the scene and was soon sending talent upward into the pro classes, then public taste moved on. These were successes because they were created for bikes people were building and riding, and because spectators loved them.

Harley-Davidson’s factory effort in King of the Baggers is an in-house operation with deadly serious money and talent invested. (Brian J. Nelson/)

KOTB has caused Harley-Davidson to again build racebikes using its own facilities and personnel. These are 100 percent serious motorcycles, covered in beautifully made and functional custom parts, created by engineering professionals backed by up-to-the-minute computer modeling. Serious money is being spent by both Harley and Indian. Very welcome indeed (are you marketing people paying attention?). Old-timers recall that back when Dick O’Brien was managing H-D racing 1957–1984, the flourishing racing department included machinists, fabricators, and mechanics under the leadership of a shop foreman. King of the Baggers at Harley-Davidson is now working as racing should, feeding back into production hard lessons most quickly learned in competition.

At Daytona it will again be Harley-Davidson versus Indian in King of the Baggers. No sports-minded motorcyclist can ignore that billing.

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