Max’s other Indian racers
IN 1943 MAX BUBECK began working with his friend Frank Chase on a ‘Chout’ – a large-cube Indian Chief motor in a smaller, lighter Scout frame. The speed of 135.58mph Max posted on this machine in June 1948 on the Rosamond Dry Lake north of LA stood until 2006 as the fastest unstreamlined side-valve Indian motorcycle. And for years it was the world’s fastest Indian – until a certain Kiwi took the honours on his streamlined machine in 1962.
To achieve this speed with a 1210cc side-valve, Bubeck and Chase installed so-called Z-metal Meehanite cast iron flywheels which accepted sustained high revs more readily. The engine was blueprinted, with the magneto breaker cam ground so both cylinders fired in perfect relation to one another. Bubeck reshaped the combustion chambers, polished the valves and installed four-lobe cams specially ground by local tuning wizard Pop Schunk. Intake design was modified by rotating both cylinders to accept twin Linkert barrel-valve (aka cylindrical-slide) carburettors, each mounted at the end of three-inch-long manifolds facing 30°rearwards. Running a blend of 80% methanol, 15% benzol and 5% ethyl, with a small amount of water to mix with the methanol for even better cooling, this motor produced 65bhp at 4400rpm at the rear wheel on the dyno. Bottom and second gears were removed to reduce weight and friction, requiring the bike to be tow-started, but achieving the desired effect with that 135.58mph speed.
In 1949 Bubeck began racing Indian’s vertical twins, with a 436cc Scout Model 249 bored to a full 500cc. At the 1950 Cactus Derby, a long-distance mountain race with a midnight start, Max’s bike lost its lighting an hour into the race. He continued by following other riders and once dawn broke he sped up and managed to take victory. His last major competition win, aboard the bike nicknamed ‘Old Blue’ (above) was at the Greenhorn Enduro in 1962 – a full 15 years after he’d last won the race.
this entailed. This was the last Greenhorn event until 1947 owing to the outbreak of war, for which Max avoided enlistment because he was by now in a protected occupation working for Lockheed Aircraft in Burbank as a jig-builder. By taking the night shift, he had lots of time to work on motorcycles by day – both his own and other people’s. By now he’d acquired a state-wide reputation as a patient, skilled tuner of Indian motorcycles.
On his own Four he buffed the pistons with emery cloth to remove 1/1000in of metal to ensure all four had an identical weight, and carefully ground the magneto cams to ensure optimum ignition timing. This work raised its top speed to 104.65mph in early 1941. Later that year, Bubeck raised the gearing from the stock 18T engine sprocket to 20T, in which form the bike was clocked at 108.43mph at Muroc Dry Lake. This despite the raised, reshaped handlebars produced for him by his friend Earl Flanders, to give him greater control standing up on the footboards when off road.
In 1946 he modified the Indian further by fitting a set of Vard telescopic forks with cast manganese bronze triple clamps, replacing the standard trailing-link girder forks with a quarter-elliptic nine-leaf spring. The Vard company in Pasadena made landing gear for aircraft and had four Pasadena Motorcycle Club members working there. During the war they’d embarked on an after-hours project of producing hydraulic motorcycle forks with two-way damping to replace the stock forks on Harleys and Indians. Vard stopped making these in 1949, soon after Harley launched the Hydraglide with an almost identical design...
It was with the bike in this form, with Vard forks, Flanders bars and 18in wheels with road tyres that Bubeck lined up for the start of the 1947 Greenhorn. Despite their strong showing in pre-war events, it was still a shock when Max and the Indian triumphed against lighter and more agile opposition. Bubeck reported few problems riding such a cumbersome bike in the dirt, thanks to its low centre of gravity which helped it handle well, and the long wheelbase which gave stability on sandy trails and on hardpacked mountain dirt roads.
Bubeck rarely ventured outside his home territory of Southern California in order to race. “I tried riding up in Northern California a few times – and experienced snow, mud and creek crossings,” the intrepid rider explained. “But I didn’t really like it that much! I guess riding in the dry desert mountains suited me the best.”
In 1949, Max switched to an Indian Warrior parallel twin for off-road racing, winning the Greenhorn again in 1962, and in 1967 he began racing Hodakas, becoming a distributor for the little Japanese dirt bikes which swiftly attracted a cult following. He finished fourth overall and first in the 100cc class in the 1971 Greenhorn on what was the smallest bike in the race. “It was easy – once I got used to riding everywhere with the throttle wide open!” he said later.
Max Bubeck finally retired from competition in 1975, having ridden more than 300 Enduros. But he continued his love affair with motorcycling, doing everything from restoring classic Indians to organising an annual Antique Motorcycle ride through Death Valley, invariably aboard his Indian Four. He kept the bike for 68 years, before disposing of it in 2007 to his Australian friend Peter
Arundel, with a remarkable 182,000 miles on the clock.
Max died in 2011, and Peter’s owned the bike ever since, one of the most treasured machines in a 70-bike Indian collection. When offered a ride, I demurred at mastering the art of using a left-hand throttle coupled with a foot clutch in normal road riding – and instead Peter offered to let me have a few laps of the Broadford race track north of Melbourne.
First thing you inevitably notice aboard the Max model are the tall Flanders handlebars it carries compared to the standard Four’s. But with their dropped grips and the low seat, the result is actually pretty comfortable – good for those 250-mile days in rugged terrain. The spacious footboards are mounted directly under your knees – this is a very rational stance, and the low centre of gravity makes what is an undeniably massive piece of metal seem controllable. That’s aided by the Vard forks, which must have been a massive asset off-road, tightening the steering as well as damping out the bounce. The well-sprung saddle takes good care of rider comfort despite the rigid rear end.
Firing the Four up once warm via the left-side kickstart was easy – but Pete Arundel had to start it from cold, because I kept inadvertently altering the ignition advance which is in the right-hand twistgrip. It takes practice to get the technique! Once lit up, it was immediately evident that this bike had been tuned up compared to a stock ’42 Four’s otherwise identical motor. There was a notably quicker throttle response, presumably thanks to the quick-action left-hand Amol throttle Max Bubeck had fitted, coupled with the better breathing from his intake mods, rather than the fractionally lighter drilled-out crank, but also evidently more torque. I could take Broadford’s uphill Turn One in top (third) gear, the Bubeck Indian sweeping smoothly and majestically round the steep bend where I’d had to change into second (‘Intermediate’) gear on the later stocker.
The right-side handshift on the Bubeck bike had a cutdown re-angled lever which was well placed. This meant that after pulling it up and back to insert bottom gear ready for departure, and operating the nicely set up left-side foot clutch, I could get the show on the road with a smooth take-up rather than a series of jerks. To shift up a gear to second, I just pushed smartly down on the lever’s flat knob; going from second to top was basically just a case of slapping it with the palm of my hand. The shortened lever results in the change being much faster and more accessible. Max Bubeck was a sociable guy – he got married four times – so he mounted a leather pad to the back of the fuel tank that he could perch on while his passenger occupied the seat! Taking a passenger must have made the Bubeck Four’s already marginal braking even more questionable – the small six-inch (152mm) sls rear drum was pretty useless, though the inch-larger front one worked OK.
The Bubeck Indian cornered well, scraping the flip-up footboards in tighter turns. It was a lot of fun to ride, but my few laps on a smooth race track are far removed from the idea of 500 miles over desert and mountain terrain. It was a pleasure to use, but I still can’t get my head around the fact that Max Bubeck beat legions of Socal’s best Enduro riders aboard this unlikeliest of off-road devices.
‘I CAN’T GET MY HEAD AROUND THE FACT HE BEAT LEGIONS OF SOCAL’S BEST ENDURO RIDERS ABOARD THIS UNLIKELIEST OF OFF-ROAD DEVICES’