Top Secret: SX Testing

Every pure-blooded dirt rider has been waiting with sweaty palms for a ride on the 2010 Yamaha, but when JGRMX got a single bike in mid-October 2009, there were no parts. Team manager Jeremy Albrecht explained his thinking on the situation: "Riding the bike with no parts was pointless for us, so we tore the bike completely apart and sent the valves, piston and pipe to Xceldyne, JE and FMF so they could get started on race parts. In the meantime we put the fork and shock on the dyno to approximate our 2009 SX suspension settings so we would have a starting point. We rode the bike for the first time on November 12th." If you are paying attention, you will note that none of the team riders have even ridden the stock bike. Team R&D tech Spencer Bloomer explained that, "It wouldn't be safe for our riders to attempt an SX track with stock suspension. If the outdoor series were first, and we had the luxury of time, then sure the riders might have ridden the bikes stock, but not with the SX series rushing up at us." Our readers moan about pulling the linkage on a new bike to grease it before riding, and these guys tear a brand-new bike to bits and wait a month before riding it!

Next up was an unconventional decision on suspension. In the past the JGR bikes looked a great deal like factory Yamahas, and especially during the first year, we were amazed that a new team had the juice to get so many factory parts. Team leader Coy Gibbs shone a light on that. "We can buy Yamaha factory parts, and we still use the transmissions and titanium bolt kits, but eventually we'd like to be as self sufficient as possible. For example, we have our own brand of lubricants, we have a retail engine and suspension business, and we may have some hard parts for sale in 2010 as well. For 2010 the price of the factory suspension went way up, and we decided to look at alternatives. We could have used the 2009 fork, but the new shock is too different. We decided to use a Showa fork, and we have a proprietary shock built by JRI Shocks. JRI makes shocks for F1 and NASCAR, but some of the technicians got their start at Fox, and they have many years of motocross suspension experience but amplified with the resources and knowledge gleaned from automotive applications." When we were with JGR the shock was still a prototype in raw billet aluminum, but the plans were for a coated and finished version for Anaheim 1. The choice of a Showa fork made additional work for R&D tech Spencer Bloomer. "Showa doesn't have an axle lug for a Yamaha, so I had to design one on the computer, and the machine shop at the JGR NASCAR shop machined them for us. We had to design our own triple clamps and have those machined here as well."