Transworld Motocross September 2018

“THE SCIENCE OF TODAY IS THE TECHNOLOGY OF TOMORROW.”- EDWARD TELLER What a time to be a dirt biker! The first few 2019 test bikes have already begun to make their way into our eager clutches. As jaded as I’ve become about new bikes over the past 25 years, I find myself genuinely excited about what the new model year has to offer. Electronic fuel injection, hydraulic clutches, electric start, ignition launch mode, traction control, variable mapping, and smartphone comparability? This is the same stuff that was straight out of The X-Files when I first started riding. Oh, and let’s not even get into the Alta Motors electric motorcycle. At the risk of dating myself, the first motocross bike I bought with my own money was a 1987 Honda CR250R.…

It’s been seven long years since Tennessee’s Alex Ray turned pro at the age of 17, but lo and behold, the popular privateer found himself in an enviable position at the start of the 2018 Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship, as he was recruited to fill in for the injured Cooper Webb on the factory Yamaha YZ450F beneath the Monster Energy/Yamaha Factory Racing awning. After completing the Monster Energy Supercross Series with CycleTrader/Rock River Yamaha, Ray had planned to compete in the first few Nationals aboard his father’s Honda CRF450R, but a surprise phone call from Yamaha team manager Jim Perry turned Ray’s entire summer around. Before his stint on the team, Ray had never earned a National point in the gritty, physically demanding outdoor races, but by his third…

It’s been exciting to watch TWMX Race Series regular Matt Hubert climb through the ranks. Only a couple seasons ago he was winning championships in the Novice class, and this year he made his Lucas Oil 450 MX National debut at Hangtown! Hubert actually quit racing for a few years back when he was on minis, as the pressure of training, practicing, and racing took its toll. “I wanted to do the same stuff that other kids my age were doing, and I was burned out,” Hubert said. In high school, the Riverside, California, native played on his high school football team, and the sport actually opened up some doors for him in the form of college scholarship offers. That all changed, though, when his high school formed a motocross…

THE BIKE Last year, Monster Energy Kawasaki crew chief Mike Williamson promised Eli Tomac that if he won the 2017 450 National Championship, he’d build him a badass KX250 two-stroke. Recently, he delivered, and we were able to borrow it for this month’s poster before it was delivered to Tomac at his Colorado ranch. The bike started out as an old James Stewart practice bike. Williamson made sure to make it clear that every one of Stewart’s championship-winning race bikes were preserved and either on display at Kawasaki HQ or with Stew at home in Florida. What started out as well-worn 2005 KX250 was transformed into a work of art by Williamson and the rest of the race team, who combined period-specific works parts and some new technology from today,…

Dubbed as all natural and perfect for energy and recovery, FMF Racing’s endeavor into the energy drink marketplace lasted but one-and-a-half years in the early 2010s with FMF Power, which came in two delicious flavors. At the time, the Flying Machine Factory was nearly 40 years old and had a shining reputation as the best-selling motocross and off-road aftermarket exhaust manufacturers in the world, but the business opportunity presented to owner Don Emler by a beverage-industry mogul seemed too good to pass up. An exhaust company producing its own energy drink? Why not! With a strong marketing and distribution plan in place, the drink was born and it seemed as if the sky was the limit for its potential. “It was a crazy time,” Donny Emler, Jr. said. “My dad…

Illinois isn’t exactly the hotbed of mountain biking, so it wasn’t until he relocated closer to the GEICO Honda race shop that second-year pro Chase Sexton began to cross-train in the hills of Southern California. “I started off training on a road bike because I’m from Illinois,” Sexton said. “So I’ve been pretty into road biking for some time now: interval days, recovery rides—all of it. But when I came out to California to train with the GEICO Honda team, that’s when I started to ride a mountain bike and it’s more fun, for sure! Plus, road biking in California is definitely sketchy with all the cars and the drivers on their phones.” Recently, Sexton was selected to be an ambassador for Intense Cycles, a Temecula, California-based brand that’s best…