Ask The Editors: Will Stock Race Quads Come Back?
We understand and miss them too.
That’s a really tough question. As hard as it is to fathom, there was a time a little over a decade ago when every major manufacturer (and a few smaller ones) offered a bone stock, ready-to-race 450cc ATV: Yamaha, Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki, Polaris, Can-Am, KTM, ATK, United Motors, Hyosung and US Highland all had an entry available.
Then, seemingly as quickly as the hype began, we were down to only Yamaha and Honda holding down the fort. Then even Honda bailed. We have covered why this happened many times – like here for example but you ask if we think things will ever return to this glorious state of options.
Sadly, it doesn’t look likely. The main reason is a simple one – there isn’t enough consumer demand to justify the tremendous effort of importing this class of machine into the US. The government comes down particularly hard on race ATVs; which often are configured nearly identically to their motorcycle counterparts. The reason for the unfair treatment is that they do not accept the designation “sold for closed circuit competition”. This means even full race equipment must meet all of the emissions and noise requirements of any other off-road machine even if it is meant strictly for the track.
However, we know better than to never say never. This nearly identical situation happened to 2-stroke race quads a decade before the race 4-stroke boom. And trust us when we say things looked very hopeless in those years between. Plus it seems like manufacturers are testing the waters of offering race-ready side-by-sides (check out this article here on Polaris doing exactly that). While this isn’t the same as 450 manual clutch quads we miss, it is encouraging to see that even with the government doing what they can to stifle off-road race equipment, the manufacturers are not simply giving up on the idea.
And while it’s not looking too promising for high-performance, screaming internal combustion race equipment any time soon, if we were to bet, we’d guess the next race-quad revolution will be an electric one. Let’s face it, all the government restrictions on sound, emissions and detuned performance can be sidestepped in one fell swoop with the electric motor.
And check this out – DRR USA actually offers a Yamaha 450 alternative in the form of their liquid cooled, 52hp 450XC here. MSRP of $7,599.
