Anyone raced their WRX or WRR?

Since there's a new forum, let's take it out for a spin.

Not that it's a race machine by any standard, but hey, you use what you've got right.

Has anyone raced their R or X?
What kind of race, how'd you like it?
Let's share.


Myself, I have not yet. The motard folks were trying to get me out last year but I was away for every race and only made the practice nights. Maybe this year...

I've only raced myself on the WR on a 40 mile loop to the local store on mostly open fireroads from the middle of the desert because we forgot the girl's J.D. one trip (albeit a 50-70 MPH trip).

So... Given that I've ridden and raced most everything (and most of what I raced was stock equipment back in the day) you can race everywhere (desert, track, MX and Enduro), I'll just say that the WR (again stock, as a street legal dirt bike) is very impressive.

As far as being qualified to comment further, my handle speaks for itself. I requit here out... Well, okay, I'll apply comment as necessary.

Not yet for me, but I've been eyeballing hare scrambles. I'm hoping Tammy will pipe in here since she's raced hers.

Yep I am and being I'm a beat up old lady I can't see any better bike then a WR250r.

So I'm racing enduros and that is a tuff sport. Stock the bike sucks. Tires the bike got better, gearing 12/48 the bike got a lot better. Go Fast reworked rear shock me and the bike got a lot faster. Once the forks are don't then I will work on more power..

Is the WRr a race bike? Nope.
Am I a good racer? Nope.
What is holding me back from being a winner on this bike. My lungs or should I say what's left of my lungs 53%..

This bike and I have the heart to win my class for 2010 and I have it fixed in my mind to do just that even if it kills me. On rocky hills I found this lil bike is just as good as any and my next 4 races are rocky ones and I should do really well in them...

The WRr can be a really good ride if you set it up right and have the skills. I have the skills to make it do just about anything but can't keep it at 100% for more then a mile. Now remember I'm racing enduros not MX tho if you had the right rider with the right set up he/she could put on a really good show on a bike that was not made to race and I think that is really key IT WAS NOT MADE TO RACE but you can and you can do well on it...

So why is this the best bike for me to race? Well think about it if I can pull off more points all yr and come out the winner at the end of the yr I did it on a street bike as most people call it and I'm old and still sick and on meds that don't do much for me in this kind of sport. It will say a lot for the bike and my skills as well as my love for riding...

I race my WRR in juinor enduros the bikes I compete against are all motorcross or enduro bikes (YZ250F and WR250F ect...). In the last race I placed 18th out of 27 but if I had not hit a tree and bent my gear lever into the footpeg I could of placed around 13-14th. For one race me and a new yz250f were maintaining the same speed in the single track (about 20-50KPH) but once the tracked turned to firebreak (about 80-120KPH) I could pull a huge gap on the YZ.
So yes the WRR can be raced but you proberly won't win it's just too heavy but:
when everyone else is changing there pistons I'am changing my oil
when everyone else is broken down on the side of the track I pass them
when I'am old enough I can ride my bike accross the country they can't
and it feels a lot better to pass race bikes on "the heavy slow trailbike" then it would on one of their bikes.

WRRSam: ....AND (assuming you have anything left in ya) you can pass em all again riding home ! Seeeeeeyaaaaaa !

Oh... Wait ! - STET- You're not old enough to ride home !

I have an R but I also have a X wheels and brakes that I swap out and I've raced mine on a couple supermoto tracks and attended a supermoto race school on it. I'll be the first to admit it's no race bike and it will not keep up with a race bike with a rider of equal skill, but it's fun as hell anyway. I've had it leaned over far enough in 4th gear that my peg was being folded up a bit and I had to remove my foot from the peg or my boot would be ground down to nothing. during the school I was able to keep up to other track beginners on KTM 525 & 560 race bikes with slicks. I'll be replacing my dual sport tires with non DOT offroad knobbies in a couple weeks and use my X wheels for commuting duty, hoping to try a hair scramble this year when my knee heals up a bit more. if you want to try a race and can't afford another bike for racing by all means take your WRR/X to the track, I guarentee you'll have fun.

Ran mine at a short track event last year,my spare set of wheels are 19-18 with dunlop k180s.
It could hang with other 250s,but not overtake as it is way under sprung and did not like to hold its line well.Pickin teeth at the track is a huge deal with a small bike,have three choices now and will get a few more.Going to get it lowered and resprung soon as that will be the biggest gain.
Then i will run some tt events as well. Also ran on the ice last year,that was fun !

Awsome to hear the stories of folks racing these little squealing pigs.

I suspect I get more track hours out of my oil change than some of the motard folks do out of their pistons.


Let's see how many WR 'racers' of all calibers we can get by the end of the season.

Racing seems to creep into most of my rides.
I try to stay off the offical tracks & stay in the dirt both here in the sand & out west.
What I have learned from racers is that most stock set ups on bikes bought to preform for us wknd dirt plowers, just suck & suck big time if your weight is over the limit of 150-175 lb.

Not trying to start a "who you calling fat" fight.
Or do I want to get shot down by "have a big guy rider who is first always on his...."

I do have actual conversations w/ racers & their tuners/bike experts. These guys know what keeps a bike of a given nature on a certain type of track or road etc, better than our stock bikes. Some will tell their findings & others will get real general.

Now most of the riders I ride w/ are w/o a doubt way over weight.

I just finished a 3+ week trip trailering 5 DS bikes over 6500 miles & made many stops to ride different areas. Met some neat riders along the way & had along some riders who were pretty good themselves. Moab was our week long roosting & one of our own, Scotty, was good enough to take off from his demanding home task & come up for a few days.

So I am going to say we had 6 in our party.
One KLR w/ progressive fork springs & a very HD mono springs in the rear. The bike was covered w/ armor & the riders is one who I have riden w/ for a few years & will continue to invite Mark in whatever I put together. He is a "big guy" too.

The other bike near the cc level was a DRZ400. This was like no DRZ I have ever known.
The owner put over $3,000 in mods on this bike & bought the bike new last year. Tom is a new DS rider & went w/ preformance mods to replacing the carb to springs, mono set up for a "big guy" & bike armor galore etc. I know the list is unbelievable long so it will stop here.

The final bike was a xt225. Nothing special except for the 4 gallon tank & real off road knobbies. Here to I know this rider to be the next best in our group to me. Her other DS bike is a DR650 which has seen the TAT & has thousands of miles in real rough off road riding.
This was not a new rider & could keep up w/ me to the point where I would question her sanity. The xt was just her way of trying to tone her pace down. She too was in the class of being a big rider.

Then there were the X riders. Nearly the only thing they didn't have in common was their age & riding experience. They were on the lean side phyically, all stood about 5'4"-5"7".
Their Xs were all at different stages of mods to nearly bone stock. The tires were DS tires.50/50. They were not full knobbies but more like the popular Kenda270 front & rear.

I like to look at what helped a rider crash & what kept a rider regularly walking away from a crash when they did go down hard. Often I have wondered about the set up of a bike & the weight of the rider. Don't kid yourself about a "big guy" having more padding. They break & crack bones just like anyone else.
Racing has given us better armor, from our helmets to our boots & everything inbetween. Racing has given us aftermarket parts whick can & will help us in the rought stuff if we really want to come out in front or just make our bike more managable.
But there is really nothing we can do about age taking a tole on our bodies naturally getting weaker. I just think we should try to keep our body as fit as we possibly can to better keep from getting hurt.
All three of the non X riders went down hard. One cracked both bones in the lower right leg & tore something loose form a "cup". Another went over the handlebars on a downward accent only to be saved by him putting his armored glove to to protect his face/head. I saw his video & it was very telling.

The worst was not over even after 4 hours of surgery which required pounding an 11mm x 36mm rod down inside the bone, only to drill out the marrow from the smaller chunk of leg bone next to the foot. Then correcting the two pieces together on the waiting rod hanging out of the upper bone part. 4 hours...6 months off of it. Time will tell.

Motocross boots were worn & the fall was a slow speed but on skull size stones going down hill w/ an off angle. Not just down hill. This type of riding was done by less experienced riders earlier but for some reason this lady just didn't get up.
We were not racing but only trying to get in a ride before night fall & know it would take 4 hours to complete what we wanted to ride. The break took place only 8 miles from our camp.
Whenever I get busted up I can directly relate it to my choice of boots, tires & terrain. All wrong for the other at the time. But the above was not the issue.
Racers have to be armored & then mentally armored in order to pull off their event.
I really don't know how they do it....again & again.

I believe you should have the better riding mods & be in better phyical condition in order to pull off those speeds at which impact is only a matter of time.
Be carefull out there while having fun racing or just riding at a spirited pace.

Next race I start on row 3

Tammy get a cam and take some vids!

Of what the LAFFERTY'S running over me? Pop is one row down and Rich is 22 and lil Jack is in there somewhere.. I'll get to see what fast really is in this race being up front.
All I have to do is finish and I'm back on top in my class.

Not bad for a old lungless lady with only 6 months of off road racing on a WRr It's going to be 98f I just hope my lungs have what it takes to get me there...

I've competed in a few enduro events on a completely stock WRR. The primary limitation was my lack of fitness. The bike is very capable, especially considering it wasn't really designed to be raced. With mods, and a much better rider than I am, this bike could be competitive in enduro style events.

Oh you are soooo right... I was going to run out and get a TE 250 or a KTM if I got to the point that I could finish but the more I ride this bike the more I think I'm going to keep it. You don't have to do zip to the motor and I like that I have to fight it.. I'm giving my body one hell of a workout with it and racing. It's going to add to my life and keep me around a lot longer. Sounds crazy but it's doing what my Dr's told me would never happen.

My lung cap was dropping and hit a low of 53% I need to go back for another test after all the fungus is gone from my lung that they killed, I bet it's getting better, not by much but it is and it's cuz of this bike and me racing...

Tammy,

I'm glad to hear that riding is doing so much good for you. I know I always feel better after riding... maybe sore, but better just the same.

PonchoV wrote:

...Be carefull out there while having fun racing or just riding at a spirited pace.

Well, everything we do in life is a risk. As my lawyer once told me once, to be most safe you should live in your padded basement, with the lights off, but it won't be much of a life.

So, live it I say!

A friend of mine shattered his femur on the motard track last season. He was riding overly aggressively and with MX boots, shin and knee guards, the femur is about all that could go as the weakest link. Do we still ride the track? YES. Does his wife who was there that night still ride the track? YES. He is taking a sabbatical from the track but still riding and enjoying life. You can live it, or give it up. Currently it's still an individual choice.

Tammy wrote:

Next race I start on row 3

Awesome. Look forward to the followup.

Trailmoto wrote:

I've competed in a few enduro events on a completely stock WRR. The primary limitation was my lack of fitness. The bike is very capable, especially considering it wasn't really designed to be raced. With mods, and a much better rider than I am, this bike could be competitive in enduro style events.

I recently rode another 'real' motard at the track and it was amazing the difference. I started thinking that I should maybe look at a 450. Then I got passed on my WRX by someone on a WRX that was using my old stock exhaust! Apparently there's a lot more to get out of this bike yet!

I almost got to race this month. There was a local motard race schedule as a sort of 'half time event' during the superbike race weekend, but due to a facility overbooking we got punted. So, I'll do a motard practice day instead at the kart track. One day I'll get to play speed bump on the race track.

Well I did really well up till check 4. I was hot by 1 min Some time after that check I lunged out. Got stuck in a deep mud hole and it took everything out of me to pull it out only to get stuck once more about 100 feet later..
Felt like passing out so I sat on the side to gets some air into my body. I would feel a lil better and give it another go only to fall flat on my face "no O2 in my body" At this point I knew it was time to drop out so I did... That loop was 9 miles but never made it to the end...

The ride back to camp I felt 50% better then I did in the woods. As soon as I pulled my helmet off and the EMT's seen me they took me to the side and put me in front of a wet fan and gave me 02 till my color came back and I could stand.. Best race by far so far. I got to run with the big boys and I keep with them.

Going to look into mounting a 02 tank on my bars so I can keep going. I think if I can get the oxygen in me before I lung out I can go like hell for the 80 miles I need to...

Thats's the right attitude. If at first you don't succeed, re-evaluate and find another way.

You die when you stop living!

There's the 'afterlife.' I don't think any of us ever die, we just move on to another dimension in life.

Well it's like this kids.... Nice to think about a afterlife but what if there is no afterlife? What if this is all we get..

All I know is I'm going to pack as much stuff into my life and have as much fun as I can with the people I love and care about the most..
Pass me another O2 tank I'm going back into the woods

No one said we can't live like we're dying. That's half the fun of enjoying what IS there. The race of Life.

I work with old people that have lots of money and they are always cry`n about they wished they did this or that. Lots of people don't really live they just fall into line and walk with all the others..

you're an inspiration Tammy! I strained some ligaments in my knee in the first supermoto race at my local track this year and missed out on the 2nd race. I reinjured it a bit trail riding last weekend and missed the 3rd race of the year yesterday. I ordered some nice riding knee braces Saturday so I will be ready to go for round 4 and 5 which will be a double header weekend. it's really hard to sit out and just watch others doing what you love so keep the spirit up.