If pushed to pick a golden age for flat track, most folks would suggest the late 60s to the early 70s. It was a time when Harley was facing a tough challenge from Triumph, and the Japanese manufacturers were on the rise too.
The racing was fierce and the bikes were good looking. This (almost) period-correct Harley is a nod to those glory days, and still looks breathtaking half a century later.

It comes from Paul Hartman, who lives in San Diego County and tickled our fancy a couple of months ago with a lovely Triumph TR6 desert sled.
?I built this Harley for vintage flat track racing,? says Paul. ?In the 50s and 60s, Harley?s race bike was the KR model, and in 1970 it became the XR. This bike is basically a transition between the two.?
The frame is an early K model with a hardtail rear end, but the engine is a 1965 ironhead Sportster XLCH unit??with hot cams and a few tricks similar to the later XR bikes,? Paul reveals.
Most flat track race series nowadays have a ?Vintage Twins? class, and that?s what Paul built this bike for. ?I tried to keep it fairly true to a period-correct appearance. It?s brakeless, so it?s just how they ran them back in the day.?

Paul got the engine from ?an old racer in Idaho. He?d built it for racing and did all the hop-up work.? A stock XLCH motor from this era puts out around 60 hp, and testers managed to get the factory bike up to 116 mph.
It was claimed to be the fastest production motorcycle of its time, so Paul?s machine will be u...