Rennie Scaysbrook | May 31, 2024
Troy Herfoss has set the MotoAmerica King of The Baggers series ablaze on the factory S&S/Indian Motorcycle Challenger. He may have been an unknown quantity at the start of the year, but he sure isn’t now
Troy Herfoss has landed one of the dream gigs in American road racing and is already a strong favorite for the King of The Baggers title.
Photography by Brian J. Nelson, Larry Lawrence, Russell Colvin
The look of unmitigated disgust on Troy Herfoss’ face in Victory Lane at the Daytona International Speedway said it all.
In his rookie meeting as a factory Indian Motorcycle rider in the MotoAmerica King of The Baggers series, the Australian had just thrown away a sure win by overriding his Indian Challenger, braking too late for the turn-nine chicane and letting Kyle Wyman steal the glory on the Harley-Davidson Factory Racing Road Glide for the second straight race.
“How are you feeling, on the whole, on your first weekend in MotoAmerica after four races?” asks MotoAmerica’s TV pitlane guru, Hannah Lopa.
Herfoss, eyes filled with self-inflicted rage, replies bluntly, “I wouldn’t want to be racing against me.” A cheer in the press room breaks out as the MotoAmerica paddock is put on notice.
It’s hard to argue with him.
Since that Daytona blunder, the happy-go-lucky Aussie has won five of the six KoTB races held, including a clean sweep at Road Atlanta of the $5000 two-lap Challenge and both feature length races. Not bad for having only been riding a bagger since January.
Troy’s American season started off perfectly with a debut win in the Super Hooligan series on the factory Indian FTR1200 at Daytona.
Troy Herfoss isn’t a man used to losing. The father of two young girls on Australia’s Gold Coast is a three-time Australian Superbike (ASBK) Champion after a 10-year career with Honda, one-time ASBK Supersport Champion for Suzuki, and he enjoyed enormous success in the heyday of AMA Supermoto competition in the mid-2000s, winning the title as a factory KTM rider in 2008. Troy is also outrageously fit and enters pro cycling races in Australia and beats up on those guys just for fun. It clearly runs in the family as his wife, Emily, is also a professional cyclist in Australia.
After a career of sliding doors in which opportunities to race on the world stage at various times disappeared as quickly as they appeared, 37-year-old Herfoss dropped a bombshell at the end of the 2023 ASBK season when, as a newly crowned champion for a heroic third time following a devastating injury in 2021 that nearly ended his career, he announced he would be splitting from the factory Honda team with no real plans of what he was going to do next.
Herfoss (center) is flanked by Cru Halliday (right) and Mike Jones (left) after taking the 2023 ASBK title 18 months on from nearly ending his career with his Darwin crash.
“I announced that I was leaving Honda one week after the championship round, which I guess pricked a few ears up,” Herfoss said. “I managed to have a chat with Wayne Rainey at MotoAmerica, and I let him know I wanted to try and come to America and race a Superbike. Wayne mentioned that this ride [factory Indian] was available in the Baggers.
“I actually had a phone call from Eraldo Ferracci (Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati) as well. I was driving a truck working at the time and couldn’t really hear that well. There’s a bit of a language barrier there, but he sort of mentioned they were looking for a rider. It was interesting.
“At first I was like, ‘I’m a superbike rider.’ Then I came home and thought about the Baggers. I was looking at the series and I thought, ‘Bugger it, I’m going to have a chat with Indian.’ I spoke to Gary Gray (Indian Motorcycle Vice President of Racing, Technology & Service) on the phone, and Gary just filled me full of confidence straight away. I was looking to step out of my comfort zone and it sounded like a rock-solid series, plus I would be working directly with the manufacturer. It wasn’t that hard of a decision from that point, to be honest.”
“That one really stung,” says Herfoss of his self-inflicted race two defeat at Daytona to Kyle Wyman.
A deal was done to partner Tyler O’Hara in the S&S/Indian Motorcycle factory team on the Indian Challenger and just after New Years’ Day 2024, Herfoss was on a plane from 95° Gold Coast, Australia, to Eagles Canyon Raceway, 50 miles out of Fort Worth, Texas, where the temperature didn’t get above 45°.
“It was raining all of that first day,” Herfoss says, “and towards the end of the day and I said to Charlie—my crew chief from Australia—’Charlie, I really would like to go to bed just knowing what this thing feels like. Let’s go out in the wet and just do a couple laps.’
“After four or five laps, I was so petrified. I had never ridden a bike that big. It was set up for Tyler [O’Hara] and it was a bit too stiff for me, and there were the Dunlop wet tires to get used to. I hadn’t ridden Dunlops in 10 years. You don’t want to go out and crash the bike on your first ride in front of 15 staff from Indian. So, I just crept around there. To this day, I’m not sure it was a good idea to do that because I went to bed that night and I was just shitting myself thinking, ‘What have I done?’”
Herfoss’ mastery of inclement conditions was on full display in race two at Road Atlanta with a massive 13-second win margin.
Much to Herfoss’ (and the team’s) relief, day two of the test was dry and the uptick in outlook quickly matched the clearing Texan skies.
“I went out the next day on a dry track and I couldn’t believe how fun it was to ride,” Herfoss enthused. “It has so much feel. I could just do whatever I wanted with it. I could slide the bike so easily. It’s got lots of torque and I just loved it.”
Another two-day test followed at Homestead in Miami and then it was off to Daytona, and Herfoss and been flying high ever since, enjoying a nine point lead in the series over former champion Kyle Wyman at the time of writing.
Herfoss with Australian MotoGP star, Jack Miller. Both are products of the same Australian dirt track racing scene that produced riders like Casey Stoner, Mick Doohan and Chris Vermeulen.
The Bagger Effect
With Jeremy McWilliams departing the Indian team after two memorable seasons as Tyler O’Hara’s teammate, Troy Herfoss knows he’s hit the right ride at the right time in his career. He brings with him a wealth of new knowledge as Jeremy’s replacement, having raced and beaten legends such as Troy Bayliss and Wayne Maxwell in Australia. More than that, the enthusiasm for a new task has revitalized the Aussie, who admits to “feeling like I’m 21 again” behind the Challenger handlebar.
“I’ve loved it,” Herfoss says on his transition. “I’ve been given such a great reception from everyone in America. I was a bit of an unknown, but people are happy for me, which is just so cool.
“The reception even back in Australia, when I come back to an ASBK event, people are just happy to see I’m doing well and interested in the whole Bagger thing. It’s a quirky sort of style of racing for most hardcore superbike fans, so there’s the people that don’t understand it and don’t like it, there’s the people that don’t understand it and are interested in it, and there’s the people that are just like, ‘This is cool as hell. I’m all in.’ Either way, it’s good. It’s drawing attention to the series, and to me. For me, it’s been unreal. It’s been like a dream, to be honest. I’m enjoying it.”
The King of The Baggers field all give chase to Herfoss at Road Atlanta in race one.
Herfoss has good reason to enjoy this new lease on racing life, having suffered a monumental crash at the Darwin round of the 2021 ASBK Championship when riding for the factory Honda team. Herfoss lost the front of the CBR1000RR-R SP on the 130-mph approach turn four right-hander, turning his head at the last second before and careering into the waiting foam wall that had already been ripped to pieces by his destructing Honda.
A six-hour operation followed in which a compound fracture to his right humerus was repaired and his hip was smashed where doctors had to reattach the upper right femur to the broken ball joint in his hip. He was also diagnosed with a broken right tibia beneath the knee, Herfoss receiving a blood transfusion following a significant loss of blood in the crash and subsequent operation.
“I was a bit traumatized from that one,” Herfoss says laconically. “The arm injury was basically the same as what happened to Marc Marquez, and we’ve all seen how long it took him to get right. My right side basically took the full brunt of the impact. I was in a wheelchair for a month, and my wife and I had to move in with her parents because I needed constant care. We’d just had a baby as well, so it was a really tough time.
“I was racing in 2022 and going to the specialist and they were telling me, ‘Your hip is still broken. It’s not healing.’ I was going to finish up racing at the end of ’22. I luckily held onto the ride in 2023, but the reality was it wasn’t a ride that the top superbike riders wanted, so I kept it and we managed to win the title. I gelled really well with that team, we were together for 10 years. It was an amazing group to be a part of and to turn a ride that no top rider wanted into one that took the championship was hugely satisfying for myself and everyone at Honda.
“I didn’t want to just finish up racing and with the wife and some kids, I didn’t want to just have nothing. So, I was just doing some [out of racing] work for security and peace of mind, really. Once the Indian deal came up, I said, there’s a lot for me still in racing. Now I’m in America and I feel like I’m 21 again. After the injury, I’m really motivated. I really want to be here. I’m out there and doing it like a young guy. I started pretty late, too. I was 22 when I started road racing, so it’s not like I’ve been doing it since I was a kid.”
An 18-year-old Troy Herfoss in full attack mode on the Husqvarna in the AMA Supermoto Championship at Shawano, Wisconsin, back in 2005.
Herfoss has gone from contemplating retirement to being one of the busiest men in international racing in the space of two seasons. As part of his factory Indian duties, he takes on KoTB and the second seat on the S&S/Indian Motorcycle FTR1200 Super Hooligan machine and will roll in a full season defending the number-one plate as teammate to Broc Pearson in the DesmoSport Ducati team on the Panigale V4 R in the Australian Superbike Championship (ASBK).
“It’s a lot!” Herfoss admits, “but next year I think I’ll be full-time in America. I’d love to ride a Superbike out here, but I know the Bagger deal, especially on a factory Indian, is a great one to have. It’s a new challenge, and my family and I are really keen to move to America. It’s an exciting time.”
Herfoss, According to the Boss
Gary Gray (center, with Herfoss) is ecstatic his gamble on the relatively unknown Australian is paying off.
Troy Herfoss’ arrival in the King of The Baggers paddock is a case of a bet paying off, according to Indian Motorcycle’s Vice President of Racing, Technology and Service, Gary Gray.
Gray has been the head of Indian’s MotoAmerica program since the beginning, overseeing the brand’s race efforts in King of The Baggers and Super Hooligan racing and is not just pleased with what he’s seen so far in the Australian but also how he’s gelled with incumbent teammate Tyler O’Hara.
“I think it’s too early to tell but so far Troy’s is exceeding expectations,” Gray said. “I was pretty confident in Troy looking at his background and seeing him be successful on multiple bikes in multiple disciplines. But we were taking a risk hiring a guy who’s never ridden a bagger in his life. I’m not one to spike the ball on the 10-yard line but so far so good.
Tyler O’Hara and Herfoss first raced each other in AMA Supermoto more than 15 years ago and have formed a strong bond as factory Indian teammates.
“After last season the team needed a new perspective. We had a lot of issues with the bike that both Jeremy McWilliams and Tyler O’Hara helped us work through during last season to be in a spot this year to be more successful. The bike Troy stepped onto works well. He can ride it with confidence. Having him go out with confidence every time gives the rest of the team confidence and energy as well.
“We are only a third of the way into the season and if bagger racing teaches you anything it’s that anything can happen. I’m just happy we proved to doubters of Troy wrong and both he and Tyler are working together as a team and that the team has the world of confidence in both of them.”CN
