My Latest Classic Steel is a look back at KTM's big and bad 520SX for 2000

Shayne King !!

Got a new 520 in 2001. Funny because it was my first new mx bike and being a small 150 pound dude 

Joel Smets rode one in the 2000 500 MX world championship.  It was bored out to 570 and was a monster.  I think back then 4 strokes could be up to 650cc in the 500 class.  

I watched him on it at the Broadford (Australia) round of 500’s that year.  Andrew McFarlane was on a one-off KX250/500 (built by Rob Twyerould I believe) and Michael Byrne was on a mostly stock CR500.  Bartolini was on a YZF500 although I’m not certain if it was the year they had the fully custom aluminium frame.

Sharkey pulled the holeshot with Byrner close behind him.  I think Smets fell early in the race then put on a huge charge.  The Aussie boys led 1-2 for about half the race when Smets eventually caught them.

Broadford is on the side of a big hill and goes up and down the hill.  I recall it being mostly hard pack but they’d put a stack of water on it so there were a lot of slick areas.  The guys on 500’s were no match for the big four strokes.  Where the 500’s were rolling the slick corners then putting on the throttle toward the exit, Smets and others on 4 strokes were powering through them.  And on the big uphills the 500’s were simply being out dragged every time.

My main thought after that race was that 2 strokes would never really be competitive again as a motocross weapon regardless of capacity.

Great job as always 👍

Remember Guy Cooper coming back on one those?

Kind of getting my feet wet in the sport in the 90s. Basically just followed my son riding around on his little pw bike, me on my 82 xr250. I read everything I could about the new KTMs coming out with E start. I wanted one bad! I ended up buying a 2000 400exc. I loved that bike! Probably would have killed myself on the 520, not that the 400 didn't try to kill me on many occasions. KTM really changed our industry over the last 23 years.

TM

Tough to find the Australia round. 

I ran kings championship sticker mugshot on my JR 50 plates. Good memories, legend. 

Love reading your write ups 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼

Such a good read 👍

Amazing how light it was. 

I won a LL title on one of those bad boys!

There’s some fairly good coverage of Dowd on an 01.

This is an article from the 2000 Australian Grand Prix with some pictures.

And this is a video from the year after when late Andrew McFarlane has signed a deal with the official Yamaha team to race the 500cc class, Byrne was picked up by a team. Chad Reed showed himself in the 250cc Class in the World Championship that year (you can find 2001 - 250cc Grand Prix' races) on the Jan De Groot Kawasaki, and got picked up by Yamaha in the states... And they showed it was possible and opened the gates for future Australians! A bit like the King brothers did for New Zealand kiddo's, show that it is all possible.

Good find. McFarlane was such a fun and great guy, it’s just sad that he’s gone.

It reminds me of this dude

That start looks like Kenworthy’s

Pretty sure it was Kenworthy.