Check this,

I met this guy at a Ford training class who's brother suposedly works for Suzuki R&D. He says Suzuki is flirting with the idea of a race-ready LT-z500 for 2006. They are already widely rumored to be working on a 450cc machine to compete with the TRX and YFZ, but are leaning towards dropping the bomb and going right to 500cc. He said the guys at Suzuki feel the Predator is the fastest quad right out of the box and they want to have that designation back in their pockets. He also said they are not planning on killing the z400, but letting it live on for the recreational riders and the woods guys. The z500 is supposed to be as race-ready as you can get including Maxxis tires and carbon-fiber and titanium all over the place. Of course it will be a multi-valve 4-stroke engine built specifically for ATV racing.

We are supposed to be taking another class together next month so I'll try and get some more info.

 

that will be a nice quad

 

Do you mean instead of building the 450 they are might go straight to the 500? Well if that's the case, wouldn't that put them in a different class from the 450's? I don't know that much about the mx/tt racing scene, but I thought there was some sort of cc limit. So in a way they wouldn't be in direct competition with 450's in the major racing circuits...correct me if i'm wrong please...

 

Well I think it's mostly open class. The Predator is 500cc but I think they can compete too. I've also seen Raptor 660s out there in MX so I don't know. Perhaps certain events are limited to 450cc but I'm not sure.

 

that sounds awesome!

 

a LTZ500? doesnt stand a chance against the old LT500R's

 

NO WAY!

The old 'Zilla would kill anything today. I'm sure they won't even use the "LT" badge on it. There is nothing like the ride on a real Quadzilla. Those things make a Banshee seem tame.

 

If they did go with the 500cc, it would be an open class racer only. The limit is 449cc I believe, or something right around there. Having a high performance quad that could only race in the open class doesnt make a lot of sense.

 

I doubt they'd call it Quadzilla... probably Quadzuki (if anybody watchs old 70s-80s cartoons they'd know what i'm talking about)

 

If they did make a z500, and still had gust, why would they care about the 450s in the race world?