I recently got my daughter an Arctic Cat 90, it's the 2x4 model, although other than plastics I don't think it's different from the sporty looking model. Know it's the same engine.....

That said my kid has shown a desire to race her quad. She's 8, and mastered that 90 in a little over a week. She really wants to race more to make friends than to compete.

But she doesn't want to be blown away either. I was wondering if anyone knew how the 90cc class stacks up. At this beginner level are the machines mostly the same?

I saw a small quad the other day that was much faster than my kid's Arctic Cat, but I couldn't see what size motor it had or what make it was. Yamaha blue, so my guess is yammie. Physically it looked like about a 90 sized frame but it had no problem leaving the Cat behind. And my daughter was wide open chasing that kid.

Are the sporty looking models from the big four actually faster? I think the Cat maxes out at about 15mph.

I appreciate the help, I'd hate to get her into it only to have her eating dust every week. But if she can at least compete, she'll love hanging out at a track with other kids.

Thanks..........

 

One thing that I have found out is your 2 strokes are pretty dominant in the stock classes. This being said, the 4 stokes that are semi auto with an experienced rider can do well as long as they can work the gears. If you have plenty of HP you can always play with the gearing and rear wheel size to get more top end out of it as well. My suggestion is to just let her go out and have fun the first year. I know you said that she had it mastered but it is a whole different world out there when there are a few others lined up next to you.

 

Thanks for the reply. I used to race MX here locally and she'd be racing mostly at the place I did. So I am at least familiar with the racing organization and the tracks here.

She would be in a catch all class 70cc-90cc youth quad. There's virtually no rules on it, I actually think the class is meant to favor the basically stock youth quads. It seems a bit of an afterthought for the organization.

On two wheels she'd be restricted to less than 85cc, but on the youth quad it just says 70cc-90cc. I imagine most of those will be pretty stock. Looking at the offerings from the big four and polaris in the 70 to 90cc class, most are four stroke, auto tranny- just like the Arctic Cat my daughter has.

I'm taking her to a race tomorrow so we'll get to see first hand and check out what her competitions would be.

 

Wow, that was discouraging.

We went to the races for the local organization today. Not only is there no youth quad class being run, there was only 8 dudes in the adult quad class.

I'm frankly surprised on both counts. The soil here in CO is like cement. Hard as any road surface, and covered in sand, so slippery is an understatement. You'd think that would favor quads over two wheels. Not so.

Also surprised no one is racing the 70-90 youth quad class. Seems like it would be a popular one since pretty much all the big manufacturers make machines in the catagory and most are automatics. I see alot of them when I'm out at the local ride spot. With no less than 7 major manufacturers making a 90cc sport quad, I can't believe none are being raced here.

I think the reason might be the age 'recommendations' on the quads. You'd have kids under the magic '12 years old for a 90cc' racing it, which wouldn't look good for an AMA sanctioned race organization. Just a guess.

 

We got our son a Kawasaki KFX 90 and it topped out at about 15mph also, but I tore appart the cvt an pulled the front pully and beltt off and there is a spacer in there sitting right under the belt on the boss . I removed that little 1inch spacer and and reassembled it and his 90 will now pull about 31-32 mph. I was amazed at the difference. I dont know if Artic Cat uses the same cvt restriction or not, but its worth investigating for that much of a jump in speed.

 

I guess I should feel lucky, my boys run the AMA District 23 series in eastern MN. The mini quad classes are real popular and alot of competition. The series we race is quad only, no bikes and we have 6 different mini quad classes and 2 sport classes. It is a blast, with a quad only series we have a lot more classes. I think we have like 18 classes in all.