‘Spirit of Munro’ swaps salt for sand

The Southland Motorcycle Club is bringing a bit of Bonneville to Invercargill next year.

The club has loan of the ‘‘new Indian’’, the motorcycle that was built in 2017 to mark the 50th anniversary of famous Southlander Burt Munro’s as yet untoppled world record on the Utah salt flats at Bonneville.

The Spirit of Munro Indian Scout will be the centre piece of next year’s Burt Munro Challenge during February 6-10.

Southland Motorcycle Club vice-president Garry Jamieson said he had never been to Bonneville but was looking forward to bringing a piece of its recent history to Invercargill.

‘‘It has been a lot of work getting it here. It’s taken being a very annoying little Kiwi at the bottom of the world to make it happen.’’

The bike, built by American company Indian Motorcycle, and engineered by its parent company Polaris, is due to arrive from the United States on January 23, in time for the build up to next year’s challenge. It will even come with its own technical team.

For the past two years, it has been raced by Burt’s greatnephew Lee Munro at Bonneville during speed week in August, where he has so far twice attempted to crack the 200mph record in the MPS-G 1350cc class. This year he achieved 192.74mph.

Canterbury-based Lee Munro will be taking the Spirt of Munro for a few spins on Oreti Beach for display purposes. Burt’s original bike and The World’s Fastest Indian movie replica bikes won’t be there, but other Indian Scout models will be.

‘‘It will be great to see the old and new going up the beach. It’s just something a little special,’’ Lee Munro said.