Well, since my last race report I’ve raced at Planet X-treme Motorsports (www.planet-x-treme.com). I was low on funds so I only raced in the +30B class. There ended up only being 3 other riders and one of them was one of my racing buddies, Joe.

This track was a very friendly track. All the jumps had easy landings so you could come up short and not end up hurt. I did my best start during practice! I ended up carrying the front wheel about 6 inches of the ground for about 50 ft. Boy, did it feel awesome! In my first moto I ended up pulling a big wheelie and let off to get the front end down and, of course, lost a couple of positions due to that. I’ll admit I was still a little timid about charging hard to the first corner in a pack of bikes. The track was a mixture of bone-dry areas and well-groomed and moist ones. The start was in great shape.

This X440S really hooks up well! I even felt that I had an advantage in the dusty dry areas because my bike found traction there too. I had changed the oils before this race and I noticed after practice what looked like an oil leak from the filter cap on the left side of the engine. I wiped the area clean with a rag and didn’t notice any more oil there the rest of the day. Maybe I didn’t wipe it down well enough from the oil change and dust just stuck there from that. I was just glad it didn’t leak any more!

The bike did stall on me once in the first moto at the bottom of a hill that had a 170-degree right-hander and the corner was very silty and soft. I think that I had it in too high of a gear and lugged it to low causing it to stall. What stunk was it took about 20 seconds to get it started again. Has anyone else had a problem getting their bike to start after running it real hard, like race conditions? I’ve noticed with my bike that after it gets real hot it doesn’t like to start very easily. But if I let it sit for about 5-10 minutes it fires right up. But, that was the only time all day that it stalled on me.

I’m still loving this bike! Even more and more each time I race it. This was only my second race this year and I can easily tell that the X440S is ready to give me more when I’m ready to use it. The power is awesome. The throttle response is lightning quick, I think that the seat is very comfortable and the suspension handles anything you throw at it! For this race I did turn my compression-clickers in 2 clicks from the factory setting (both forks and shock) and this seem to work very well for my 210lb 6ft. 2in. frame. Plus the fact that I flat-landed most of my jumps because I’m still too weary of jumping far enough to hit the downhill side of the landings.

I finished both of my motos in 3rd place which gave me 3rd place overall. I probably jumped the bike higher and farther than I ever have before and I’m really getting comfortable with the bike on a MX track. I don’t feel as tentative as I used too because the bike is giving my confidence and reassurance that it will take care of me as long as I don’t do anything stupid.

Oh year, there was a guy there racing a Cannondale Moto 440. He said that he ruined the fuel-line O-rings because he had been running race gas and had just found out not to do that. I told him about Thumper Talk and the fact that the info about the O-rings had already been brought up there. I saw him start one of his motos and he stood the quad straight up off the line. He recovered enough though to get it down and get racing. I don’t know where he finished.

Take care!

Troy