I was less than enthusiastic when Harley-Davidson finally released the Street 500, one of their two newest middleweight models meant to break into the beginner and intermediate markets. I was hoping they might divert a little more radically from their signature cruiser look, but the Street 500 felt like a less inspired, smaller-displacement, fuel-injected, liquid-cooled vanilla version of an 883 to me.
Then, as if Harley had tuned into my gripes, I learned of their plans to bring flat track racing to the masses with intentions of adding the event to the X Games and using the new Street 750 as the platform. At the same time, The Speed Merchant dropped us a line from California to say they were building a tracker-inspired Harley Street 500 to be unveiled at Born Free 6.…