CONTROVERSIAL KTM 150SX VARNER BUILD — PASHA SHOOTOUT EPISODE 3

Pasha Afshar is responsible for investing thousands of dollars into the motorcycle industry from his own pocket. He not only spends big cash on supporting riders and lending his bikes to up-and-comers, but he has poured thousands of dollars into his Pasha 125 Open races—where he pays big purses to two-stroke racers (and takes no payment in return).

For this shootout, Pasha bought all three bikes, paid the bills for all three engines and outfitted all three with the products that he uses on his race bikes. These were not MXA test bikes and we had no say in what parts Pasha used or who he had assemble them. Would MXA have picked different engine tuners? Well, we did in our 2019 125 Project Bike shootout with Pro Circuit, Twisted Development and R&D Racing — but this wasn’t our project, it was Pasha’s.

Terry Varner was a controversial choice. But at one time Varner was as famous as a two-stroke tuner could be, but Terry fell on hard times (all of his own doing) and, in the process, damaged his business and his reputation beyond repair.

Pasha offered Varner a chance to redeem himself in this shootout. It should be noted that MXA has no business relations with Terry Varner or Jim Haesaker, but we do have a close connection to the builder of the third KTM 150SX — Jamie Ellis (who writes a column in MXA every month).

You’ll have to wait until next Monday for the final shootout video to find out which KTM 150SX engine wins — Haeseker, Twisted Development or Varner.