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Yamaha Goes Mobile

Get photos, specs, sales updates and other info about Yamaha off-road products from your smart phone online now!

Check out the new feature on their website at http://m.yamaha-motor.com/ 

New Off-Road Racing Series for 2011

The following is a statement from the promoters who organized the Official Extreme Dirt series here in the U.S.:

Dear Racers, Fans and Sponsors
First off we wanted to take a minute and congratulate each and every one of you racers on a victorious year of racing. Congratulations and we wish you all the best of luck in your many more years of racing to come!!

Next we would like to welcome you all to the newest national series. Super National Cross Country Championship. This series is going to spread through PA, WV, down to KY. Our plans are to go to hit the greatest and newest race places on I 79. You probably know us from the past we used to own The Official Extreme Dirt Series. We believe that we grew the series to get as big as it could for being a local series, however we wanted the local racers to continue supporting and carrying on the local series for many years to come. So we decided to pass what we built on a local series level to a former friend that assured us that he would continue the series as is and fulfill the remaining 2010 season, other wise we would have completed the 2010 season as promised just as I stated at my last race in Cutler OH. In the mean time we have decided to start the SNCCC and spread from state to state with it. We believe that it has opened up many more doors for the racing industry and we have met many more great smiling faces that love races in the process.

We are looking forward to a great and successful race season in 2011. We hope to see you all there, on fresh new dirt! You can check out the web site at http://www.supernationalracing.com/

We hope you enjoy your off season and holidays with your families. Halloween is approaching fast. Spooky monsters, scary ghost, screaming witches, and crazy goblins. All sound like fun to us! Happy Halloween and God Bless!

Our 2011 race dates have been released; however the location will be released shortly! We will be racing All Quads and UTV's on Saturday and All Motorcycles on Sunday every weekend.

How-To Tip: Battery Life

SAVE YOUR BATTERY
FROM WINTER'S
ICY DEATH GRIP


Here in Ohio, winter temperatures can drop well below 0 degrees Fahrenheit, and that's optimal battery killing temperature for most sport and utility ATVs. By late October, the temperatures are getting cold enough frequently enough to start draining the sealed acid batteries common in today's quads. If you don't already own one, now is the time of year to go buy a battery tender or low-voltage battery charger for your ATV.

At TPR, we're pretty anal about our quad maintenance. Sport quads with highly modified internal engine parts - even just a high-compression piston - like the TPR project YFZ450R put an added strain on the starter every time you crank over the engine to fire up the quad. That added strain is shifted to the battery by drawing a little extra juice than a stock quad with no modifications, and that means your battery will start to lose its charge quicker. So we hook up our project Yamaha to the battery tender about every other ride, or during long periods in between rides, to make sure our battery has an optimal charge.

You don't have to get extremely technical and monitor your battery's exact charge with a volt meter. Most low-voltage battery tenders, like the Optimate 3 we use and purchased at a local Yamaha dealer, will charge the low-voltage battery of an ATV to the optimal 12 to 14 volt range without over charging it and damaging a wet battery's internal cells. Such chargers plug into a standard wall socket, have positive and negative clamps for your battery terminals and are available at Wal-Mart or a local dealer for about $50.

During the cold winter months, our charger is almost never disconnected from the YFZR battery. We also typically remove the battery from the quad during the winter just as an added precaution, so if there is an immense charge or overload to our shop system that the breaker doesn't catch we won't fry our expensive Dynojet PCV or other electronic components on the new Yamaha.

On a precautionary note, don't expect to use your dad's rolling charger/starter to maintain your quad battery. Those big rolling chargers are designed for truck and car batteries, not the small unit on your ATV. Using one of those chargers could seriously damage your battery by melting the lead terminals, and that would put you out some big bucks. Today's ATV batteries can cost more than $80 to replace, so spending $50 on a trickle charger or battery tender can keep your battery breathing life into your quad for years.

For more How-To tips, check out the link at the top of the page. Next, we'll be showing you how to change the oil in Yamaha's new YFZR models, a tip that applies to the YFZX and most other sport quads. Stay tuned for a product review of Motoworks SR4 full exhaust system.

Video - Final WORCS of 2010

Team Motoworks/Can-Am's Josh Frederick reclaimed his WORCS crown this year by beating out MCR Honda's Beau Baron in the pro ATV class. Frederick and Baron battled closely all year, and the season ended no differently with Frederick edging out Baron by just two points!
Rounding out the top five in the 2010 pro WORCS ATV class is  MCR's Josh Row, Yamaha's Dustin Nelson and rookie pro Dillon Zimmerman on the Motoworks DS450.
Check out video from the final round of the series at Mesquite, Nev., where Frederick capped the season with the win.

Technical Difficulties

Things have slowed down here at the TPR Quad Promotions blog due to technical difficulties, but we should be back up and posting again with some salient frequency in the coming weeks. Until then, you can peruse the past year's worth of posts to follow story lines including how the TPR Project YFZ450R came together, get up close looks at ATV products from Tarantula Performance Racing, check out product reviews and more.

the Crew at TPR

Video - WORCS Round 8

Here's the video of the WORCS pro ATV races at Glen Helen. MCR's Beau Baron came away with the win and the points lead over Can-Am/Motoworks' Josh Frederick.

Joe Byrd's Race Quads up for Sale

Buy It Now: Two-time National MX Champion's Motocross Quads

Long-time Honda motocross racer Joe Byrd is selling "some" of his race-ready and practice motocross ATVs in his massive stable. You can see pictures of the quads for sale with listed prices at JoeByrd.com.

This announcement from the two-time national champ can be interpreted several ways. The first, and hopefully most likely, reason Byrd would be selling all his Honda race quads is because he's going to be riding for KTM or some other manufacturer in 2011. However, the likelihood of this being the reason seems doubtful given the current state of the economy and rumors the king of ATV motocross - Suzuki - is dropping its support for 2011 in an almost unanticipated move.

Will Joe Byrd be racing on a different brand next year? Or perhaps an updated, fuel-injected Honda?

Another possible reason for the clearance sale could be related to personal financial troubles with the Byrds or the Joe Byrd Quad Riding School. This year, Joe rode with injuries and sat out several rounds, which means he missed a lot of podiums and the likely contingency bonuses that go along with it.

A third possible reason is that Byrd is simply retiring and getting out of the ATV motocross racing business. With Doug Gust's retirement leading into the 2010 season, Byrd is now the elder statesmen of the sport. Byrd is remarkably fit, but he's no spring chicken, and injury recovery is that much more painful and time consuming.

This is all pure speculation of course.