King of the Baggers Race Preview
With a 2010 Harley-Davidson Street Glide, Chance Darling over at Barnett is picking away at the build in his spare time due to the increased demand the company is seeing during the pandemic.
“I am working on it as I can, but with this coronavirus crap, I have been bouncing all over trying to get product out the door,” he said.
Darling has a JIMS 131 cubic-inch test engine already on the bike and is using one of Barnett’s signature Scorpion Clutches.
The racer they have on deck is Josh Chisum, who has well-respected success riding Harley-Davidson 883s and XR1200s.
“I am hoping to get him over soon to get it out on the track and do a little bit of something besides riding around the streets,” Darling said.
He will be running some heavy-duty sportbike tires, Darling said, but not slicks or anything like that. It will have 17-inch wheels in both front and back, utilizing a Legend Suspension kit.
Barnett’s build, still a work in progress, is shooting more towards the normal rider that can’t afford a ton of stuff or doesn’t know exactly what to do, with parts that actually create performance gains rather than just aesthetic flare.
“People are spending a lot of money on baggers and are putting more into them to make them bigger and faster,” Darling said. “They may not know what to do with everything, but if we show them what is possible, it will help promote our brand and keep us in business.”
He added that the Drag Specialties and MotoAmerica partnership for the race will cater to existing spectators and hopefully bring in new ones.
“This idea all started with dudes on the race track looking down at the baggers in the parking lot and trying to find a way to sell them some bike products,” he said, adding that if the success of the race leads to having a dedicated bagger series, business will boom.
When asked about weight, Darling said they were going to chop off the obvious parts that don’t need to be on a race bike, but aren’t going wild.
“We are trying to make it lighter but we are not going crazy on it. It will be a bit of a pig as it is,” he said.
