I went to the grass radar run in Albert Lea, MN today... I decided to try 3 sets of tires today, the distance of the radar run, was 400 ft... a little long, for my 22" tires, that I'd normally run, for ATV distance drags ( it was a snowmobile radar run, but they wanted some ATV's to run )... I took my buddy Dan, with his slightly modified '03 650, as well as my beast... we also talked the local dealer into running a few runs with their demo Brute Force, & also saw an EFI 700 Sportsman make a run or two...

I had a set of 22" X 11" X 9" GBC Schredders mounted on the quad, & took my set of 23" X 8" X 12" Titan 489 XT's, with 80 - 1.5" X 1/8" Stainless bolts, & my set of 26" X 10" X 12" Goodyear MTR radials, to mount on the rears... it was well below freezing this morning, & there was a heavy frost... the sleds ran several runs, before I came to the line... I thought, that the slippery grass, would keep me from hooking up well enough, to need the wheelie bar... well... I was wrong...

there were several bumps, in the 1st 50 ft or so of the drag area, & I hit the 1st small bump, & the quad came up quickly... then went over on one rear wheel, on the left side... the quad hooked to the left, & I was pointed to the chain link fence... I tapped the rear brake, & brought it down... & hammered it again... it hit the next bump, & I found myself sitting only on the right rear tire, & heading into the snow fence, & the croud... a tap of the rear brakes, & a gentle throttle put me back heading down the strip.... in the 1st 50ft or so, I had the quad pirowetting ( spelling ), like a fat ballerina... with a pretty slow 26 mph in the 400 ft, of slippery grass... installing the wheelie bar, was the very next thing we did... I found out later, running speeds against the Brute, that I was letting off, at the last cone, & the unit recording top speed, was about 50ft past the last cone... so my speeds would have been probably much higher with the 1st 2 sets of tires... with the Schredders, I averaged 49.5 mph in 400ft of slippery grass, with the studded 489's, I only averaged 41 mph, which was very suprising, as they hooked up the best of the 3 sets of tires... perhaps being heavier, & more rolling resistance, than the others, that when I was letting off early, I slowed down more ??? with the MTR's, I was averaging over 50 mph...

Dan's modded 650, was running around 46 mph, with a new set of Badlands...
The Brute was running 48 - 49 mph...
The EFI 700 Sportsman, was running 41-42 mph...
My best speed was 52 mph, & was recorded with the 26" MTR's ( but I was letting off early, with the other tires, so the Schredders may have been better ??? )

In reality, the Brute is a fast quad... the softer IRS suspension was hooking up better over the bumpy 1st 50 ft of the strip, & it was really only 2 mph or so slower in the same diastance, than my modded Prairie...

I'll try to post a few pics tomorrow, on the "other" Kawi site... ( sorry, no dancing hippo pics )... it's hard to catch those awesome pics on the camera, as they seem to happen so fast...

 

i probably would have greased my pants. those wheelies scare the crap out of me.