diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index 8e09f30cb39..3190879cc12 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -142,6 +142,9 @@ Bug Fixes
 * SOLR-1651: Fixed Incorrect dataimport handler package name in SolrResourceLoader
   (Akshay Ukey via shalin)
 
+* SOLR-1660: CapitalizationFilter crashes if you use the maxWordCountOption
+  (Robert Muir via shalin)
+
 Other Changes
 ----------------------
 
diff --git a/src/java/org/apache/solr/analysis/CapitalizationFilterFactory.java b/src/java/org/apache/solr/analysis/CapitalizationFilterFactory.java
index 693ddec734b..1aa6b439398 100644
--- a/src/java/org/apache/solr/analysis/CapitalizationFilterFactory.java
+++ b/src/java/org/apache/solr/analysis/CapitalizationFilterFactory.java
@@ -206,6 +206,7 @@ class CapitalizationFilter extends TokenFilter {
     char[] backup = null;
     if (factory.maxWordCount < CapitalizationFilterFactory.DEFAULT_MAX_WORD_COUNT) {
       //make a backup in case we exceed the word count
+      backup = new char[termBufferLength];
       System.arraycopy(termBuffer, 0, backup, 0, termBufferLength);
     }
     if (termBufferLength < factory.maxTokenLength) {