A headless chicken earning $50,000 a month, a female racer beating up on the boys, and an Indian Scout with a 1:1 power to weight ratio. These are not stories plucked from an episode of Ripley’s Believe It or Not. All these things are true and form the foundation of one incredible machine that took home top trophy at its first race meeting. Having been selected by Indian Motorcycle to undertake the build, Nik, Fabian, Ale and Zesi at Switzerland’s Young Guns Speed Shop haven’t let down the big American maker. They have delivered a tyre-shredding 2016 Indian Scout Sprint Racer known fondly as ‘Miracle Mike’.

So what’s all this business about a headless chicken? Well in 1945 a Utah farmer cut the head off a chook that was meant to be dinner and sans head it lived for another 18 months. Miracle Mike as he came to be known travelled the carnival circuit around the USA earning his owner the equivalent of a staggering $50K a month in today’s money. Inspired by the fun and freaky fame of this creature, the Young Guns named their Scout in his honour and made up a race plate with the number to commemorate how many months Mike made it without a head.

Confident the power was heading in the right direction, the Young Guns team sought more weight saving and increased performance elsewhere. The suspension was the first port of call – Öhlins came to the party with its latest USD fork, secured by an LSL upper clamp. This required some fettling from the guys to bring it up to their satisfaction before a set of LSL ’bars could be fitted up. A quick action throttle also got the nod, while a hydraulic Magura lever combo sent power to the new Brembo brakes.

Out back an Ohlins shock makes dialling in the bike a cinch, but the burden of the stock wheels on the bikes unsprung weight called for a change. The rear starts with a stock Scout hub that has been laced to a lightweight Excel Supermoto rim. With the front wheel coming from an R90, both measuring 17 inches they wear sticky Metzler Racetec rubber. Sadly aftermarket parts for the Scout are not overly tailored to the performance side of things so the Young Guns fabricated their own rearsets that work with an electronic quick shifter for ultra-fast gear changes.

Yanked tank

With the contracts signed and the brand-new Scout sitting in front of them, the team began the tear-down process in earnest.

“We wanted to build a bike which can keep up with serious sportbikes like the BMW RR but still use the original frame and engine,” explains Nik.

Saving weight is easier than making horsepower, but this build would require both to deliver bulk performance. The stock tank was pulled from the bike and totally gutted – it would no longer hold the go juice – and was narrowed by 12cm. Immediately this saved weight and gave the bike a more svelte look that was carried on rearward. The entire subframe is a Young Guns creation that was modelled on Nik’s KTM dirtbike.

The seat continues the dirtbike theme with the custom trimmed piece finishing out in a sharp alloy tail. But it’s what lies beneath that is key to transforming the Scout and helping to get the power down to the ground. Shifting the weight closer to the rear wheel, the guys fabricated a custom alloy fuel tank that can be filled by lifting the seat. As considerably less capacity is required to run the strip, there’s also room for the battery, all hidden by the two alloy side covers. Left in bare metal they make for a beautiful contrast with the classic Indian colour scheme applied up front.

It’s a gas

While the boys worked on the chassis they sent the engine out to horsepower gurus Swissauto. The 1133cc American muscle makes a lazy 75kW from the factory and this would need to be almost doubled to get the job done. The idea was to run nitrous, so the engine was built with giggle gas in mind: solid internals, high-flowing heads and precision engineering. To improve cooling and save weight a friend of the shop fabricated an alloy radiator while the Young Guns made the custom piping to fit.

With the engine back from Swissauto and in the chassis, the exhaust was mocked up with careful consideration given to the location of the O2 sensors – precise tuning was vital to the final product. The system itself saves a chunk of weight over stock and flows considerably better with the finishing touch a very sportsbike-like Akrapovič muffler. To finish out the fuelling system, Wizards of NOS supplied a wet nitrous oxide systems that delivers both the N2O and extra fuel to prevent catastrophic lean outs.

Mammoth horses

Other mods included an Öhlins fork and rear shock, Brembo brakes, LSL upper clamp and ’bars, Magura lever combo, Metzler Racetec rubber and an electronic quickshifter. By the time the Young Guns were finished, the Scout had shed nearly 50kg with a final weight of 198kg fully loaded. And after serious tuning work and two solid days of power runs, they found a mammoth 185 ponies at the back tyre. Accounting for drive train loss that’s an easy 150kW at the crank – making this the first Indian Scout to reach the magic 1:1 power-to-weight ratio.

Then, when the team arrived at the Essenza sprint races, they pulled a swifty on the crowd by putting former 250cc GP rider Katja Poensgen in the saddle. She blitzed the field, earning Indian and Young Guns Speed Shop the top trophy. Once again Miracle Mike had all and sundry running around celebrating like headless chooks.

Words MARTIN HODGSON  

Photos  RACERFISH.COM