When a spot opened for a new teammate to join Indian Motorcycle’s Tyler O’Hara in the hunt to reclaim the King Of The Baggers championship in 2024, racing fans were surprised to see an Australian superbike racer join the ranks. Surprise turned to amazement when Troy Herfoss earned the 2024 KOTB championship.
Herfoss came to Indian after a 10-year career with Honda in Australia, where he claimed Australian Superbike titles in 2016 and 2018. His career was derailed in 2021 when he suffered serious injuries after crashing at 130 mph, but he was racing again in 2022 and earned his third ASB championship in 2023.
Despite his impressive roadracing career, 37-year-old Troy Herfoss seemed to be an odd choice to pilot a big bagger in America. He was unfamiliar with many of the U.S. tracks, although he had previously been seen on American shores, winning the AMA Supermoto Series Finale in 2008.
Herfoss immediately garnered attention by nabbing pole position at the season-opening races in Daytona, followed by two runner-up finishes behind Harley-Davidson’s Kyle Wyman. At Circuit of the Americas, Herfoss won Race 1 and finished 2nd behind Wyman in the second race. Herfoss added two more race wins at Road Atlanta, then followed up with a 1-2 at Road America.
Related: 2024 King Of The Baggers Championship Finale Results
Herfoss didn’t fare as well at Brainerd and Laguna Seca when his crew chief was stranded in Australia due to a visa issue, but he was back on form at Mid-Ohio, adding more 1st- and 2nd-place finishes. He trailed Harley’s Wyman by only two points heading into the championship finale at New Jersey Motorsports Park.
Troy Herfoss demonstrated his championship caliber when he finished 2nd behind rookie Rocco Landers in Race 1, followed by a win in Race 2. Wyman’s pair of 3rd-place finishes wasn’t enough to prevent Herfoss from nabbing the KOTB championship. He ended the 18-race season with seven victories and 14 podium finishes.
We wanted to find out more about the stellar performance from Herfoss, so we called him up to pick his brain about this remarkable season.
KD: When I met you at Daytona, you had just gotten pole position, and we thought it must’ve been a fluke to have an Australian come into America and outpace Kyle Wyman, your teammate Tyler O’Hara, and reigning champ Hayden Gillim. You did what sounds impossible.
TH: Honestly, at that point, I would have agreed. A track like Daytona, there’s a lot of slipstream and tactics come into a lap – Daytona is so quirky. The first session was so, so scary going to the banking. I got going [in the second session] and put a new tire on and clocked to the fastest ever lap at Daytona in King Of The Baggers. It was just surreal, such a crazy experience.
KD: You were coming into the season not having ridden a lot of the tracks you raced on this year, and you’re on a bike completely different from anything you’ve raced. Wasn’t that intimidating?
TH: It was a big challenge. My goal was to get outside my comfort zone and see what I’m capable of as a rider while I’m still at the top of my game. It’s a very difficult bike to get the most out of it but so enjoyable when you are riding it fast.
KD: I got a few laps on the Indian Challenger racebike a couple years ago, and that beast terrified me.
TH: After speaking with Jeremy [McWilliams, former Indian racer] and Tyler about the development of the bike, I feel very fortunate that I’ve jumped on in 2024. It’s a true racebike in every way, and from what I’ve been told, it was not always that way. A lot of hard work’s gone into making this bike what it is. Although it’s big and heavy, it handles just like a racebike.
KD: New for this season was a billet swingarm and a larger rear axle. Did that help?
TH: Yeah, I’d done my first ride on the original swingarm, and then got the new one directly after – it definitely helped the bike. Some of the stuff that Jeremy and Tyler had tried in the past and didn’t like, I liked, and then we were able to adapt [those things] back into the program in a different way. Toward the last couple of rounds, the development was really coming together.
KD: What’s the difference in setup that you found worked for you?
TH: There were some different [rear suspension] linkage ratios they tried in the past that I re-tried when I got on it. I was running the bike a little bit softer than Tyler, with softer throttle maps and stuff like that. It was quite intimidating to have the Indian Challenger at full power. It was maybe too far in one direction at the start, but then we started to come back towards each other towards the end.
KD: One of the unsung heroes in racing is the crew chief, and you brought in your own guy, Charlie Hallam. And then you had subpar race results when he couldn’t attend.
TH: Yeah, Charlie’s been working with me for a couple of years, and he knows what I’m looking for out of a bike and understands my comments. But yeah, we flew in for COTA, and long story short, 34 hours later I was having a debrief with the team about what the hell we’re going to do without a crew chief at COTA.
KD: And that was the worst part of your season…
TH: Yeah, that would have been that weekend at Brainerd. I competed on a Superbike as well, and it would have been a big help to have Charlie there. I had a crash on the Hooligan bike, and then I was quite sick between [Brainerd] and Laguna.
KD: But the season turned out kind of amazing, with you on an unfamiliar bike riding so many tracks you hadn’t ridden.
TH: It’s a credit to the team to give me a bike I can be so comfortable on, to just roll out of pit lane, learn the track, and not have to worry about the setup. The bike was flawless – I never actually had an issue while riding the bike in a race.
KD: Considering that any of six riders this year could have won a race, MotoAmerica seems to have come up with a set of rules that put Indian and Harley on equal footing. The Indian has less displacement but can use a higher rev limit.
TH: Yeah, I think they’ve done a great job with the rules. It makes it really exciting to feel any of us guys can win a race on any given weekend.
KD: For you to beat fast guys who had way more experience on these bikes doesn’t sound possible.
TH: I appreciate that. You know, a lot of credit to Kyle and his team too, because he showed up every weekend on his A game. I lost a lot of sleep this year – he raised me to a new level, so that’s been a lot of fun. I’m sure he’s going to lift his game, and H-D are going to lift their game, and I’m looking forward to racing for another couple of years.
KD: You’ve won championships in several different categories over the years. How is this one different?
TH: To come here in my first year and win and elevate myself as a rider and working with a team in such a short period of time gives me a lot of satisfaction. It’s really special to these [Indian Motorcycle] guys to have their brand winning, and for me to be able to do that in my first year, it’s quite an honor. I want it to keep going.
KD: After earning the championship for Indian, I was surprised you don’t yet have a deal for the 2025 season. Why is this deal not done?
TH: Look, I’m 37 years old. I guess there’s got to be longevity, and Gary [Gray, Indian’s VP of racing and services] has got to make sure he’s got the right guy. We definitely agree that we want to continue; just making sure we’re both happy.
