And it wasn't long before he began racing motorcycles on the weekend. With his brother, my Uncle Cliff, as his mechanic, he specialized in TT racing. His favorite bike to race was an Indian 101 Scout, which you'll see in many of the photos in the video. TT racing was a type of racing that was on smoothed dirt terrain with right and left turns. They didn't have any jumps back then because these guys were running big 750 stripped street bikes with hard tail frames and maybe about three inches of travel in their front link forks.  

 

	Dads First Racebike

Back then, before television and NASCAR, motorcycle racing was a big spectator sport. People would come from miles around to see those guys race...and/or run into trees and crash. There were no guard rails, so the people would stand right along the edge of the track urging their favorite riders along. Helmets were just coming into vogue, and Dad wore a little pudding bowl fiberglass job with no padding inside; just webbing.

 

I don't know how many people got hurt or killed doing that, but there were TT and flat track races everywhere. Every town had one or two events per summer. Dad got pretty good at these and by 1947 was ranked as an Expert by the AMA, all that time riding that same 1929 Indian 101 Scout, tuned by our Uncle Cliff. His little shop was busy and there was plenty of service work to do.

 

But the Indian Motorcycle Company hadn't survived the war in very good shape financially. Harley had won the contract to produce military bikes during the war, and when the GI's came home, they were more inclined to go check out and buy a Harley, the bikes they had seen running around during the war.

 

But Indian did sell a lot of 1947 to 1953 Chiefs, the bikes with the full fenders you most often see on the road today. But they are really the "end of the line" models from Indian.

 

To Indian's credit, they did see the need for a smaller version of bikes to be manufactured and sold, and pioneered the idea of building modular frames and making multi-model engine parts. In '49 and '50 they started producing an Arrow 220cc single and a Scout 440cc twin in pretty much the same frames.

 

But if you compared this new lineup of small Indians to the familiar '40-'53 Chief models, which were not produced any longer, they really missed the mark. I had one of those '49 440cc Scouts a few years ago. They were beautiful to look at, but just too small to appeal to the macho guys who just got out of the military. If you parked the new Indian models next to a '47 to '53 Chief or a Harley Panhead, you'd wonder what the heck were they thinking? Plus the new bikes had reliability issues. I think it was in 1950 or '51 when the Indian factory took ten race-prepped Scouts to the big race in Daytona, and all of them broke down with mechanical issues.

 

And so began the dark days for the Indian Company. First they started selling European bikes, like Jawa, through their dealerships. Different groups of people bought control of the company, but then The Indian Motorcycle Co. finally went bankrupt in 1953. Brockhouse Engineering, from Great Britain, used the old Indian dealership network to try and sell their own Enfield bikes, rebadged as Indians.  That didn't work out long, either.

 

So back at the Barnes Indian Shop, with no in-coming new bikes to sell, things continued to get tougher. And then another thing happened in 1949: I was born. That meant now Dad had two kids and a wife to support. So he quit racing, went out of the Indian business, and got a real job at a factory. He sold off his Indian inventory, one by one, until the only bike remaining was his dear 1929 Indian 101 Scout race bike. That one sat in the corner of the barn.

 

But then Mom had twins, Carole & Darrel in 1952, the family finances got even tighter, so even that last Indian had to go. I can still remember the day; I was maybe five, and we watched Dad's favorite Indian go out the driveway in the back of a pickup truck. For the next 10 years or so, the Barnes family remained motorcycle free. We only heard about Dad's racing exploits once in awhile, and they usually ended with the phrase "I wish I had never sold my 101."

 

But time does have a way of repeating itself. First, I got a Sears Allstate moped and started riding it in the woods, helping its meager little engine by pedaling up the hills. Then came a 1965 Honda 305 Superhawk and I started riding it back and forth to high school and then to college at BGSU. And then one fateful summer I did my first motocross race in Medina, OH on a little Honda XL 125; and got hooked on the sport.

 

After graduating from college in 1972 with a degree in Journalism, I landed my proverbial "dream job" with Cycle News magazine in Austin, Texas. My favorite memory of that time period was getting to race in the Houston Astrodome, and then writing about it on the way home. That was the first major inside motorcycle race that I know of. But look at all the indoor Supercross races you see on TV now!

 

But after a year or so in Texas, I sure missed Mom & Dad and friends back home. (And I'm sure my girlfriend back then had something to do with it, too.) Plus I was doing more watching and writing about racing motorcycles than actually riding them. So I moved back home to Ohio and got a job at the local newspaper. And I started riding and racing motorcycles again. A lot.

 

Dad became my pit man at every race, as we rotated from motocross and hare scrambles to flat tracking and then even some of his favorite, TT races. Back then I rode a Bultaco 250 Astro and I even got to ride an indoor short track on concrete at the old Cleveland Coliseum. Dad was always there, ending many conversations in the pits with that fateful phrase "I wish I still had my 101." Finally, Mom had heard that line often enough. So in the late 1980's, she tracked down the guy Dad had sold his 101 Scout to, and low and behold, he still had it. At least most of it anyway. It had been parked in his dirt floor crawlspace and his kids had totally disassembled it. The gas tank and fenders had rotted away. But she bought the pile and gave the boxes of parts to Dad for their 40th wedding anniversary.

 

And so began a five-year project of our restoring Dad's 1929 Indian 101 Scout. But since Dad wouldn't be racing it again, we made the decision to rebuild it as a street bike. The first guy we took the motor to for a rebuild, Indian legend, Paul Gambacini, died before he started working on it. Thankfully, we rescued our motor before several other owners' motors got trapped by probate court.

 

That ate up a year or so and we got nowhere on the rebuild. Then we found a young guy who lived nearer to us, Jeff Javens, of New Philadelphia, Ohio who agreed to take on the restoration project. And that took a couple more years. It was mostly completed in 1991. I say "mostly" because there's always something else that needs done yet on a restoration project.

 

So that's the very same bike you will see in the old black & white racing pictures and in the color pictures from today! It's a 1929 Indian 101 Scout, one of the best bikes Indian ever built. They were especially known for their good handling. That's the bike you may have seen running, and still do sometimes in those "Wall of Death" domes at county fairs and other places.

 

I learned through this time, that when you restore an antique motorcycle, you should keep two things in mind: One, you don't know how long it's going to take; and two, you don't know how much it's going to cost. You measure time in years, not months.  

 

And you measure dollars in thousands, not hundreds. And that's what it took. But thanks to the good Lord, Dad got his 1929 Indian 101 Scout back in 1991. I'll always remember how he just jumped on it, started it and rode off like he'd never stopped. For the next few years, we did Indian rallies and bike shows pretty often and Dad was really proud of his new '29 Scout.

 

But then in 1996, Dad was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He lived about six months more. Toward the end of his days, I'd roll him out to the barn in his wheelchair and start the bike, just so he could hear it running. He loved that bike. Now that beloved Indian mostly sits in my work shop, and is the crown jewel of my collection.

 

But then in 1998 I started racing again. There is an organization called AHRMA, the American Historic Racing Motorcycle Association. And since I still had a '74 Bultaco Astro 360 in my collection, I thought what the heck? I might as well try it out! I was "only 50" years old and my leathers still fit. A little tight, but they still fit.

 

So me and my friend and bike tuner, Steve Benson, hit the circuit on weekends. I still had a real job in the newspaper business, but I did pretty good and finished 3rd in the nation in my class in 1999, inspiring me to move up a class and ride even harder the next year.  

 

But early in the 2000 season, I crashed pretty badly in Cumberland, Maryland riding a Yamaha 650 we'd built over the winter. Got broken ribs, a punctured lung and was knocked unconscious. Worse yet, in the emergency room they cut my vintage Bates leathers off me with a pair of scissors. Now losing them, not to mention the injuries effectively ended my second motorcycle racing career. At least for a few years, anyway...

 

But there was one thing I had not done yet, that I had always said I wanted to do. And that was to race an Indian motorcycle, like my father had done. I fought that urge for a long time, but I guess it was supposed to be. Shoot, I was "only 60."

 

So I bought a 1940 Indian Sport Scout race bike, owned by a former New York State Champion, Lloyd Washburn. Lloyd and his tuner, Roger Balas, and my friend Steve Benson, rebuilt it for me to run vintage half mile races again, which I continued to do until age 65 or so. That's when I finally hung it up. Never got top ranking, but I had fulfilled the tradition of racing Indian motorcycles. Just like my dear old Dad.

 

This brings me to the family tradition of riding street Indian motorcycles. I had bought this really nice '41 Indian Sport Scout and it was fun to ride around town.

 

But to keep up with traffic on the big roads, I bought a worn-out 1948 Indian Chief. And so began another long process of rebuilding it with Mr. Benson. It's now got a four-speed transmission and an electric starter. (I'm too beat up to kick start it these days.) I ride this blue Chief quite a bit during the summer. It's not a show bike, but it runs and looks pretty good.

 

 

And then I obtained an Indian sidecar that I thought I might put on the blue Chief when I "got old." But a year or so later, a high school friend of mine offered to sell me his '47 Chief and I couldn't refuse.   So I called Mr. Benson and another project began. The motorcycle itself was already in good shape so we painted the sidecar to match it. And we added an electric starter.

 

Now I don't know how you guys tell your wives about the fact that you want to, or maybe already did, buy an Indian. But I have proved to Debbie over and over again that an Indian motorcycle is always worth more tomorrow than it is today. They appreciate in value better than a 401K, and are a lot more fun. And now, since Polaris bought the Indian and is producing great bikes and promoting the brand, my collection of old Indians has continued to raise in value. Plus there's always a new Indian T-shirt to replace my old ratty ones. The tradition continues...

 

And speaking of "Continuing the Tradition," just this spring, my nephew, Skip's son, Steve Saurer, bought a 2017 Indian Sport Scout. That now makes three generations of Indian riders in our family. Pretty cool! Steve had a short career in racing motorcycles, too. But that came to an abrupt end at Mid Ohio when he crashed his Honda CBR 951 and got hurt. He's now a deputy sheriff in Wayne County and collects sport bikes, in addition to his new Indian Scout.

 

And finally, here's a picture of my grandson "Rider" on his Indian. With him hanging around with me down at the shop, I think it's pretty likely that he will continue the family's Indian tradition when his time comes. Life is good.