SNEAK PEEK AT THE NEW MXA! THE MARCH 2022 ISSUE IS OUT NOW

The March 2022 issue of MXA is on newstands and in mailboxes right now. It is jam-packed full of bike tests, product reviews, tech articles and stuff you didn’t know—and no one else will ever tell you.

 

Yes, we know you’ve watched all the videos about the 2022-1/2 KTM Factory Edition, but this in depth story tells you all the things they didn’t tell you about the new technology and interesting features of what will be next year’s KTM in a few months.

Do you know what finger followers are and how they work? Even more importantly, what makes them better that the shim-under-bucket tappets that preceded them. It all here, in an easy to understand format.

We don’t just go out for a day with the Yamaha public relations guys and ride the bike on a track with no other bikes allowed, including last year’s YZ125. We show up the next day, without the PR men, and begin comparing the 2022 YZ125 against its competition. You’ll be surprised what we found on day one, day two and day 63.

New stuff from O’Neal, Fastway, Acerbis and ODI.

The MXA wrecking crew did an East Coast tour from Florida to New York, but made our longest stop to visit with ClubMX’s Brandon Haas to ride and test on his massive ClubMX facility. Plus, we sat down with Brandon to learn the history of his famous training facility.

O’Neal has been in the motocross business since the 1970s and, unlike a lot of its competitors from back in the day, they are still at the top of their game with their new Hardware gear. New ideas pop up all the time, take TOG’s Goggle Gasket, which keeps the tear-off below the tear-off above clean and Guts Racing’s widely popular Wing seat cover.

This is what a motocross bike should look like. No fluff, no Paisely print seat covers, no gaudy graphics—just a frame, engine and a gas tank. BSA knew what they were doing back in 1966.

Passes don’t always come from dumb luck, although lots of them do. But, in the real world, passing comes from having a strategy. Here are ten ways to make passes stick.

It is strange how bikes that very few people ever got to ride or race, achieved legendary status—like the Vertemati four-strokes. When VOR mass produced the Vertemati brothers masterpiece back in 2001, MXA was surprised to find that it was not as legendary as everyone thought. You can find out all about it in this MXA Retro test.

MXA was impressed by this group of riding buddies who banded together after the tragic loss of two of their teammates to build commemorative bikes in their honor and then race them at the “24 Hours of Glen Helen” Endurance race. Kyle Yarnell and Kyle Parton were no longer around, but their friends raced on their bikes in rememberance.

The MXA test crew had never raced on a Pivotrax Ap102 rear tire before, but we were pleasantly surprised by this economically priced Soft-to-Intermediate rear tire.

Even test riders who had full-race KTM 450SXFs at home were impressed by the performance of the budget-priced 2022 GasGas MC 450F. We say “budget priced” because it costs the same as a 2022 CRF450 or YZ450. It meets that price point by running forged triple clamps, Maxxis tires and silver rims, while not including an hour meter or map switch.

There are a lot of ways to work in the motocross industry beside being a mechanic, PR guy or company owner, these three men came from diverse backgrounds—one is from Guam, another started by shooting videos and the third used skiing to leap frog into motocross.

Gary Jones was the powerhouse of motocross in its formative years. Like clockwork Gary clicked off AMA 250 National Championship and switched teams almost every year in search of the most lucrative contracts (Gary raced for Yamaha, Honda and Can-Am). When his career was abruptly halted by a badly broken leg, he didn’t miss a beat, and when he healed, he started his own motorcycle brand, Ammex, and kept right on racing. Later, he switched to off-road racing, winning Baja, and never gave up on motocross, winning the World Vet Championship seven times.

Jamie Ellis tells you the difference between horsepower and torque—and which one you want the most of on the start and on the track.

We tested Garrett Marchbanks Muc-Off/ClubMX Yamaha YZ250F right before the 2022 AMA Supercross season was about to start. We got to try several different set-ups that Garrett was considering and learned the ins and outs what Garret likes.

Before four-strokes dominated the off-road scene, Honda spent millions developing an emissions-legal, 400cc, two-stroke engine. Although it never made it to the assembly line, largely because of the arrival of four-strokes, it did make it to the race track–winning its class in the Baja 1000, Paris-Dakar and the Nevada Rally. Today, the Honda EXP-2 is all but forgotten.

Before we did the group 250 Shootout video or shot the photos for the magazine test, we spent months racing these seven bikes week in and week out. Not just with Pro riders at the Pala and Hangtown Nationals, but with young kids and old hands at the weekly wars. Our goal was to learn everything we could before commiting ourselves to a winner

Let’s not get to misty about these seven 2022 bikes because six of them were largely unchanged from when they met each other a year earlier in MXA’s 2021 250 Shootout—only the 2022 Honda CRF250 was all-new, but sadly as a production bike it wasn’t all good.

MXA dynoe all seven bikes on the same day, and on the same dyno we have been using for years. The numbers in the blue boxes represent the bike that made the most horsepower at that rpm. The light blue boxes signify the least horsepower in that rpm range.

Got a question? You can Ask the MXperts. If we don’t know the answer we call someone who does. That’s better than the crackpot advice you get in the pits.

MXA’s Ezra Lewis throws up a smoke screen on the 2022 Honda CRF450 to insure that no one behind him can use his line.

This is Justin Barcia doing a little short tracking on a GasGas MC250 two-stroke.

For “Great Moments” in the March 2022 issue, we went back to March 2012 issue, where we interviewed Roger Deoster on the anniversary of his first full year at KTM. We also asked him why he hired Ryan Dungey out of the Intermediate ranks. Roger said, “I never saw Ryan race, but I liked the way he acted. I decided to invited him to California for a test session with Ricky Carmichael.”

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