ASK THE MXPERTS: DID ANDREW SHORT’S CRF450 HAVE TRACTION CONTROL AT THIS YEAR’S AMA MOTOCROSS NATIONALS?


It was illegal 14 years ago and it is still illegal today.

Dear MXA,

I can help but wonder what turned Andrew Short from a good starter into a phenomenal starter in the blink of an eye. Short holeshot virtually every AMA National motocross moto in the second half of the season. Did Honda put traction control on the bike to help him get off the line?

The honest answer is that we don’t know?but we assume that every factory bike has some form of traction control hidden in its electronics. The typical system is in the ignition and it simply watches for runaway rpm and then retards the ignition to mute the spin. Honda could be doing this, but we aren’t saying they are and neither are they. We have taken a close look for electronic sensors on the works frames, but none are visible?however, with modern ignitions, wired sensors are old school. We think that there is more to it than traction control, but it is ultra-secret stuff. Honda may also have a special clutch to insure perfect launches.

As for Andrew Short, he said, “Okay, you guys are officially crazy! I did laugh though. It’s called throttle control, not traction control…”

Even through traction control is illegal under AMA rules, there is no way that the hammer-and-chisel AMA tech inspectors could ever catch an ignition system with traction control hidden in its multiple maps. Illegal or not, traction control has been around for many years.

Here is a passage from Motocross Action‘s test of the 1997 Honda CR250 from 14 years ago that proves that the AMA anti-traction control rule has never been in enforced. And, if a compnay had developed a system 14 years ago, don’t you think that it could have perfected it by now. It should be noted that after 1997 Honda never ever mentioned the system in the CR250 again?that doesn’t mean that they took it out.

“QUESTION SIX: DOES THE TRACTION-CONTROL IGNITION WORK?
    The CR250’s map-type ignition has a microprocessor that reads rpm settings every 35 milliseconds. If the processors detects an increase in rpm that is out of the ordinary it interprets this as wheelspin and flattens the ignition curve to mellow out the power and lessen the wheelspin. Formula One cars used a similar system a few years ago. Does it work? No. The ?97 CR’s abrupt transition from low-to-mid occurs so rapidly that the microprocessor would have to hit the kill button to stop the wheel from spinning (when a rider applies too big a handful). It’s a piece of technology that can’t account for mud, hard-pack or the maladroit.”

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