Harley-Davidson’s Racing Heritage: From Board Tracks to Dirt Ovals and Drag Strips
A Gritty, Real-World Look at the Machines and Men Who Built a Legacy on Speed
There’s a certain kind of beauty in a motorcycle at full throttle, its engine straining against the limits of physics, tires clawing for grip, and a rider hanging on for dear life as the world blurs into a smear of asphalt, dust, and adrenaline.
Before Harley-Davidson became the king of the open road, it was the king of speed. Long before chrome-laden cruisers and V-twin baggers dominated highways, Harley’s reputation was built on board tracks, dirt ovals, and the raw, unforgiving world of early motorcycle racing.
This is the story of Harley-Davidson’s racing heritage—a journey from the splinter-covered board tracks of the 1910s to the roaring XR-750s that ruled the flat tracks, and the modern-day dragsters tearing down quarter-mile strips. It’s a tale of grease-stained wrenches, high-revving engines, and riders who were willing to put everything on the line for speed.
The Early Years: The Board Track Era (1910s-1920s)
When Speed Was Measured in Courage
Imagine a time before leathers, helmets, or even brakes that worked—when motorcycles were basically pedal bikes strapped with engines, and men were insane enough to race them at 100 mph on steeply banked wooden tracks.
✔️ These oval board tracks—called motordromes—were built entirely from two-by-four lumber, often standing at 45-degree angles to allow for high-speed cornering.
✔️ Harley-Davidson, just a decade into existence, entered the racing scene to prove the superiority of its V-twins.
✔️ By 1914, Harley-Davidson had formed its first official racing team, known as The Wrecking Crew, a name earned because they dominated races and quite literally wrecked the competition.
But board track racing was deadly—splinters the size of daggers would fly off the track, and crashes often turned into fireball disasters. The sport eventually fizzled out by the late 1920s, but Harley had already made a name for itself as a brand built for speed.
Flat Track Domination: The Rise of the XR-750 (1950s-Present)
The Most Legendary Dirt Track Racer Ever Built
If you want to talk about the single greatest race bike in Harley-Davidson history, it’s not a sleek, faired road racer. It’s the Harley-Davidson XR-750—a dirt-chucking, sideways-sliding, flame-spitting machine that ruled American flat track racing for decades.
✔️ Introduced in 1970, the XR-750 was Harley’s answer to increasing competition from Japanese brands in AMA Grand National Championship racing.
✔️ It wasn’t pretty, but it was fast—an iron-barreled 750cc V-twin, tuned for torque-heavy acceleration, designed to slide sideways around dirt ovals at over 100 mph.
✔️ The most successful race bike in history—the XR-750 won 29 AMA Grand National Championships between 1972 and 2008, making it the most dominant flat track motorcycle of all time.
And then there’s Evel Knievel, the man who made the XR-750 a pop culture icon.
✔️ Knievel’s world-famous jumps—from Caesars Palace to Wembley Stadium—were all done on an XR-750.
✔️ The XR-750 wasn’t built for jumping, but Knievel didn’t care—he just sent it, over and over, breaking bones and setting records.
Even today, flat track racing remains one of the purest, most thrilling forms of motorcycle competition—and you can thank the XR-750 for keeping Harley-Davidson’s name at the top of the podium for decades.
Harley on the Strip: The Birth of Drag Racing Dynasties
Big V-Twins and Even Bigger Burnouts
If board tracks were about bravery and flat track was about finesse, then drag racing is about brute force—and Harley-Davidson has spent decades proving that nothing launches down a quarter-mile strip quite like a properly built V-twin.
✔️ Harley’s first serious drag racers came in the 1950s, when hot-rodders started stuffing stroker kits and nitromethane into Knuckleheads and Panheads, just to see how fast they could go.
✔️ The 1980s and ‘90s saw the rise of the Harley-Davidson VR1000, a factory-built, liquid-cooled drag bike that attempted to take on Japanese and Italian superbikes in AMA roadracing.
✔️ Today’s Harley drag racing scene is dominated by Top Fuel monsters, capable of 1,000+ horsepower and running 6-second quarter miles at 230+ mph.
Harley-Davidson’s modern drag racing efforts are now led by Vance & Hines, the legendary performance tuning company, and their Factory Harley-Davidson Drag Racing Team, proving that the brand still knows how to go fast.
Harley’s Racing Future: Can It Still Compete?
With today’s motorcycle racing world dominated by lightweight, high-revving sportbikes, many wonder: does Harley-Davidson still belong in racing?
✔️ Flat track remains a stronghold – Even with newer competition, Harley’s XG750R and factory-backed teams are still fighting for wins in the American Flat Track series.
✔️ Drag racing is bigger than ever – Harley-powered Top Fuel and Pro Stock bikes continue to push insane speeds.
✔️ Road racing? Not so much – The VR1000 experiment ended in failure, and Harley has largely stayed away from traditional circuit racing.
✔️ The Pan America & ADV Racing? – With the success of Harley’s Pan America, could we see Harley competing in rally or adventure racing in the future?
Harley may no longer be the undisputed king of racing, but its legacy is still alive on dirt ovals, drag strips, and custom-built speed demons worldwide.
Final Thoughts: A Legacy of Speed and Steel
Harley-Davidson was never just about cruising down highways—it was about winning races, pushing limits, and proving that big V-twins could be just as fast as they were loud.
✔️ From the deadly board tracks of the 1910s to the dirt ovals of the XR-750, Harley has been racing for over a century.
✔️ Flat track legends, drag strip monsters, and even Evel Knievel himself made Harley the king of high-speed showdowns.
✔️ While racing isn’t the brand’s main focus today, its influence can still be seen in every Harley engine that growls to life at a stoplight, ready to launch.
Because at the end of the day, riding a Harley-Davidson has never just been about getting from Point A to Point B—it’s about how fast you can get there, how loud you can make it, and how much fun you can have along the way.