roadracing a 450 supermoto

HPT is perfectly fine on a motard

 

Just wish the front straight wasn’t so long. I’m on the throttle stop in 5th for very long time. It’s my home track though. So I’ll be taking the SMR out there pretty often.

 

Anybody still bringing out the Ape 450’s to race?

 

I haven't seen a 450 or 550 in years.

 

Oh I'm wide open at Brainerd for a solid 30 seconds between 13 and 3

 

Looks nice, I just see one picture? Is that a 65, just quicker than a KX65?

 

450 SMR factory race supermoto:
https://ktm.com/en-us/models/supermoto/ktm-450-smr-2022.html

 

Rob might be taking the piss haha

 

Yeah I tried a couple links to load it and it didn’t work, but the image captions are somehow ghosted into the post. Oh well.

 

Are you on the limiter that long?

 

Reliability issues aside, is there any reason they wouldn’t still be competitive?

 

Been roadracing my Husky FS 450 for 5 years. never an issue. I run 16/40 for gearing sometimes 15/38. Have raced Laguna, Barber, Blackhawk farms, Gingerman, CMP, Heartland, High Plaines raceway, NJMP, and a bunch others. Only track I will never go back to again is Daytona. Only reason I raced it this year is I wanted to chase the Championship this years so I had to hit as many races as possible. I ran a 16/38 there.

 

Originally yes. Stock gearing was way to short, I'd hit the hard limiter coming out of 1 then "soft" limiter all the way to 2 which would then hit the hard limiter again . I run 15-40 (15-45 is stock) now and it has solved the problem. I also change the oil religiously on the bike.

 

Any major engine maintenance/repair in that time?

 

None. Just basic maintenance stuff.

 

RXV / SXV were there power wise IIRC, 52hp / 65hp at the wheel? I want to say there were a touch heavy though compared to current machines, closer to a 690/701 now? The MXV 450 was at the right weight target, but you couldn't get it in a 550 variant. I think ultimately even if competitive, and reliability wasn't an issue concerns getting parts if needed is what's likely keeping them away from the track at this point.

 

52 at the wheel sounds about right, and they are around 300 wet.

Always wanted one of these v2 rippers, and you can pick them up pretty cheap. Allen Noland can build them to be very reliable.

 

Actually, I knew you were talking 450’s and I saw that little pic on my phone and thought that was an expansion chamber and the wheels looked like 12’s?

So I’m not going to play it off like I was cool, I’m just a dummy when looking at my phone at 2 am when I couldn’t sleep. Lolol

I actually owned a KTM 450 SMR for awhile and really enjoyed it.

 

Our local series doesn't have a class for motards. What class do they run in with WERA and how are the turnouts?

 

I wouldn't touch one of the aprilias with the fs450/smr450 out there