American-Board-Trackers’ Boardtracker 1 turns mayhem on its head

It was almost a century ago that alcohol-fueled board trackers raced around wooden oval tracks in front of enthralled audiences. That was before the brakeless 100-plus mph motorcycles started careening off the tracks’ steeply angled banks, crashing into crowds, killing spectators and prompting the press to call them “murder cycles.”

That era, for obvious reasons, was short-lived, but it was also formative, helping to shape an enduring reputation among the general populace that motorcycles are, at best, dangerous, and, at worst, a threat to the public safety. Death and destruction aside, the board-track period spawned some of the most enduringly beautiful motorcycle designs. It’s that legacy that American-Board-Trackers is attempting to recapture with its “new vintage” Boardtracker 1.

Mayhem sold separately.

I had a chance to ride the prototype of this Big Bear Lake start-up at Grange Motor Circuit in Apple Valley -- a track that was neither wooden nor banked nor oval. It was asphalt and included 14 turns in eight-tenths of a mile. It wasn’t exactly the sort of place I would have chosen to ride such a long proof-of-concept bike with a $35,000 price tag and no insurance. But that’s what I was offered, so I took it.

Lucky for me, American-Board-Trackers’ debut only looks vintage. It’s tricked out with bits of modern technology that make it a lot more ridable than its profile would suggest.

Let’s start with the ignition, which is electronic, though it isn’t operated with a button. Turn the key, and, like a car, the bike roars to life.

Twist the grip, and it’s gas that powers the ’99 Harley-Davidson Evo motor. Roll the 21-inch wheels over a bump, and the leaf spring on the double-crown fork helps cushion the blow. Take a corner, and the machine-slimmed primary drive cover won’t catch the pavement. Pull the front brake lever, and the Brembo caliper puts the squeeze on a 320-mm disc brake.

The designer and proprietor of American-Board-Trackers is Dan Hanebrink, who made a name for himself in the ‘70s as the builder of high-tech road racers, bringing mag wheels, monocoque frames and belt drives to motorcycles. He then took a decades-long career detour into mountain bikes, until a downturn in that business and Hanebrink’s advancing age inspired the now 69-year-old designer to return to his first love: motorcycles.

The result: his new Boardtracker 1, which he hopes will be the first of many board tracker customs. Next up: a 1911 Indian repli-racer, powered with a Ducati eight-valve twin.

When he isn’t wrenching parts in his garage, Hanebrink rides a Ducati 748, which wouldn’t mean anything except that he’s taken a bunch of that bike’s state-of-the-art components and added them to his retro board tracker. The footpegs and brake systems on the Boardtracker 1 are pure 748. So’s the steering damper, though it doesn’t damp steering: It’s mounted to the fork, where it works as a secondary shock absorber, complementing the friction damping provided by the fork’s leaf spring.

Even less conventional re-purposings include the Teflon-coated Stater Brothers skillet Hanebrink reshaped into a clutch cover, and the drag-racing Moon fuel canister, which serves as the bike’s oil tank.

So Hanebrink’s a bit eccentric. What’s truly crazy is how well his bike rides, because the math is deceiving. The Boardtracker 1 is more stretched than a true replica. The wheelbase is 67 inches; the rake is 34 degrees and the trail is 3.9 inches.

I was expecting to crawl around the corners at Grange, which I did at first while I got comfortable with the bike. But with each successive lap, I found myself riding faster and leaning harder, riding the tires close to the bead.

That said, the bike is a prototype, so there are a few glitches. One of the bolts on its rigidly mounted motor vibrated out. The starter whirred into motion when the bike was already on. And sitting on the bike after I’d ridden it for a while, I found my hamstrings felt like roasted pork, despite the high-temperature, matte-black paint on the dual exhaust.

Then there’s the pro racer who rode the bike after me, exploding an oil line and dripping the slick stuff on the track. But that’s how it is when you’re getting the kinks worked out on a new product. At least they’re issues that were caught and will be remedied before the bike acts like a true vintage board tracker, flying head first into the crowd.

susan.carpenter@latimes.com