Dirt Rider's October 1985 cover featured then Husky employee Charles Halcomb on the first liquid-cooled, single-shock Husqvarna Automatic and Chris Crandall on an ATK 560. That was not a good-luck cover. Halcomb no longer rides, the Forest Service fenced the area in which we shot the photos, two-strokes are endangered and barely a rider still competing remembers the Autos. Crandall and ATK are still here, though.
In the October '95 issue we took a first ride on the radically new Honda XR400R. Dick Burleson did the initial test and felt it would be a great trailbike for many and a competent racer for some. Since it was a good seller for Honda for 10 years, he was pretty close. Still, that bike weighed 266 pounds and barely had more than 30 ponies. A closer harbinger to today was the Husaberg electric-start 501 we tested. We called it the first race-capable electric-start four-stroke. That concept has obviously caught on in a big way.