Stark Varg Racing Debut

France Elite MX round 1

Poor results from Herbreteau in MX1 (14, 13, OA 13) and even worse from Lopez in MX2 (28, 16, OA 19).

Still think Herbreteau can be a regular in the top 10. 

Actually expect big things from Lopez. First race in MX2, first race on the Varg, already holeshot and was running in the top10 for some time, then got arm pump in race 1 and crashed in race 2. The kid is only 17 and shows serious speed. This is a learning year, great prospect.

Very exciting indeed.

🤣

If leading his 1st race is not exciting enough for you, give Yannis 5 more races and then come back to us with your unrivaled enthusiasm.

Would top10 in a race for the rookie season of a 17 years old be impressive enough ? I guess not.

He had pace for 12th in his very first MX2 race, if he can score a top10 that would be enough for me to signal great things to come. 

I find it exciting to witness young riders progressing and rising to the occasion, that's one thing I really enjoy in this sport but maybe that's just me.

Haven't you heard?  The Stark Varg just makes everything sooooo exciting.  🤡

Don’t feed the trolls. Just keep posting the awesome things going on in Stark world, the majority are enjoying it. 

You're right of course. I selectively feed the trolls, I send Racing a few crumbs cause he's not agressive and we can actually discuss. He kinda become a resident troll in this thread. Plus, as a fellow Frenchman, I can relate to his grumpiness 😁

I must admit I don't understand the compulsion to follow this thread if one is not interested in electric dirt bikes but I find it amusing.

Faster than your smoker. 

I would know, I sold my YZ250 for an 80HP Varg. The YZ feels like a pig now. 

FIM Superenduro round 6

(It was last week)

Billy Bolt is world champion and not racing the last round cause he's becoming a dad in the forthcoming days.

It was a more difficult round for the Stark boys, Karlsson 5-4-5 for 5th OA, Martyn 7-7-8 for 7th OA.

Tonight is the last round of the series.

Right. Huge fan of the sport. Never ever posts anything but Stark propaganda.

 😄

FIM Superenduro round 7

Eddie Karlsson profited from Bolt's absence to score his first Superpole. That was a good round for him, he followed that with 2-4-3 for 3rd OA (level on points with Walker in 2nd).

Martyn was close behind 6-5-6 for 5th OA.

They end up 4th and 5th in the championship, another small step for Karlsson who ranked 5th last year and terrific improvement from Martyn who finished 14th last year with Rieju.

Stark also won the constructor championship but that's not even good enough for bragging rights, they were basically the only team with 2 riders racing at every round.

Some news from down under, they got a Stark team over there.

Jett Carter is racing dirt track and flat track.

Kyle Campbell will race AusProMX and presumably AUSX as well. He did a couple of MX races last year on KTM, best result 14th then raced the whole SX season, ranked 10th in the championship with a best result of 11th.

The riders have been to Spain last month to test for one week with Stark.

Last year Stark were racing pro MX for the first time in France, now they're racing Elite MX, MXGB and AusProMX. More real world data from quite varied tracks!

Electric dirt bikes just become legal to race in a 3rd and 4th FIM world championship. Beyond WSX and Superenduro, electrics are now allowed to race in EnduroGP and Hard Enduro.

EnduroGP

https://www.fim-moto.com/en/documents/view/2026-0-endurogp-electric-eot…

https://app-cdn.sportity.com/bae57938-42ac-4e70-9df2-30b19bead7e0/af159…

Electrics are allowed in E1, E2 and E3 (not in Youth, Junior or Women championships). Battery swaps are allowed at refuelling points (there must be at least one every 50 km) and in pit lane for special tests. Mechanics are allowed to help the rider, of course this time counts fully in the race time.

The FIM continues to devise technical rules adapted to every championship so they're different from both WSX and from Superenduro: in EnduroGP the current is to be regulated (and to be tested, then of course bikes will be fitted with mandatory FIM datalogger and sensors). 

Max current will be 100 A for E1 Class (250cc 2T and 4T), 125 A in E2 Class (450cc 4T) and no limit for E3 Class (>255cc 2T, >455cc 4T). 

Voltage must be between 360 V and 420 V, aligned on Stark Varg nominal and max voltage, respectively. 

Using 360 V nominal voltage, that comes down to max power 48 hp (36 kW) in E1, 60 hp (45 kW) in E2 and no limits in E3, in line with "standard" limits imposed in national championships of max 48 hp with 250s and max 60 hp with 450s.

It's also markedly lower than the limits imposed in WSX of 59 hp (44 kW) for SX2 and 72 hp (54 kW) for SX1. The rules are worded differently: the cap in WSX was in power output while in EnduroGP it's about current. Cap in power makes more sense to regulate electric bikes with potentially different nominal voltages, no doubt such rules would be adapted whenever another OEM is ready to race electrics. Indeed it's written in the rules "For other voltages, please contact *** to add it in the list".

Hard Enduro

https://www.fim-moto.com/en/documents/view/2026-0-hard-enduro-electric-…

https://fim-hardenduro.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/2026_FIM_Hard_End…

​Electrics are only allowed in the Pro category. There are no weight nor power limits. RWYB.

To recap, here are the technical rules for electrics in FIM championships:

Power limit (limit in current for EnduroGP converted in power)

"250s" EnduroGP 48 hp / WSX 58 hp

"450s" EnduroGP 60 hp / WSX 72 hp

No power limits in Superenduro or Hard Enduro (or EnduroGP E3)

Weight limit 

117 kg in WSX 

113 kg in Superenduro 

No weight limit in EnduroGP or Hard Enduro 

Note that all technical rules described in "Equivalent of Technology/Balance of Performance" can be updated by the FIM anytime before or during the season.

 Man, I was really surprised you hadn't posted it yet. I saw it like, IDK, yesterday.

😉

I know, right, FIM published this almost a week ago.

I'm slacking off but I was counting on you since you follow these news as closely as I do 😆

The fine folks at CBoysTV are at it again, building wild machines and tearing things up. But their latest build, a Stark Varg converted to a trike has to be one of their wilder builds.

As of this writing, I legit just stepped into my house after ripping my Stark Varg EX through our neighborhood. I popped many a wheelie in my blast and never once did I think, "You know what? I think this needs less weight at the front, more weight at the rear, and better traction so I can backflip it from a standstill."

Interview with Seb Tortelli about Stark racing

https://enduro21.com/en/features/latest/5-minutes-with-stark-racing-dir…

In EnduroGP they will have some kind factory-supported team with OxMoto, a big french dealer already behind Stark Elite MX team with Herbreteau in MX1 and Lopez in MX2, they also raced in the national Enduro championship last year.

https://enduro21.com/en/racing/latest/endurogp/first-look-stark-oxmoto-…

Herbreteau will race in E2 (450s), he's making the transition from MX to Enduro, was quite impressive at Gotland national last year but that's very little experience before entering a world championship. They don't mention if he's dropping from Elite MX but he must be, I wonder if they have a replacement rider for him in MX1. His teammate will be Marc Sans racing in E3 (Open), very experienced, last year he finished 6th on a Gasgas.

Hard Enduro team riders have not been announced yet but that's very likely be their SuperEnduro riders Eddie Karlsson and Toby Martyn. Seb wants to race Erzberg prologue, that would be cool.

One of the last hurdles with AMA is noise, they must get something ready, they've been talking about it for too long already.

A little nugget for the geeks out there: talking about battery development he says that they've been racing in WSX the technology they will soon bring to market... all I can think off is that it would mean they've been racing the 26120 cells ?

Seb says they're racing with around 48 hp in SuperEnduro and the bike got lighter. Minimum weight was adjusted from 117 kg to 113 kg so that would mean they're below 117 kg, they could have removed 1/4th of the battery cells to do so.

Cooper Abbott will race a Stark in US Hard Enduro and Erzbergrodeo as well

Clutch time?

Cooper Abbott did reasonably well for his first race on the Varg, 17th overall. Not sure how many more US Hard Enduro races he plans to do, curious to see if he can progress and get closer to the top 10 where he belongs.

Great info about battery life: he races at 47 hp 60% regen. Range in hard enduro depends so much on the terrain, 18% left after fast qualifier of 1h52, 40% left after 2h slower more technical final.

And here's a little pic of Cody Webb, just because

Cooper says he doesn't miss it

Last weekend was France Elite MX round 2, probably the worst round from Herbreteau (who makes his EnduroGP debut this weekend), 20th, 13th for 16th OA. He's 12th in the MX1 championship.

In MX2 Yannis Lopez delivered a solid round for only his second race in the category, he's starting to collect holeshots as well, 10th and 10th for 9th OA, 11th in the championship.

Just saw that a rider, Daniel Pinto, is currently 6th on MX1 Portuguese national championship, and another, Broc Grabham got a podium in AusEnduro E3. Hold outs series are fewer and fewer.

That was announced a longtime ago and posted about in this thread already.   

There are some solid state batteries that are coming out on a motorcycle this year, and some other cells coming in the next couple years. They claim that the cells in the bike that will be available this year have a 100k life cycle,  almost twice the energy density as the cells in the varg and can charge from 0 to 100 in 5 to 10 minutes. The cells have shown that they put out more power when at a level of heat that would  cause problems in lithium cells. They also claim that the cold doesn't impact them and cost is on par with current lithium cells.  They damaged a cell by putting a hole in the pouch and it dropped to 80% capacity and stabilized at 80 not decreasing in capacity over multiple cycles and it also will not catch fire if damaged .  

  Charging in 5 minutes, 100k charge cycles and twice the energy density would make electric work for a lot more people. You could have a Varg with almost twice the range, or cut half the weight of a battery. Either way, its exciting to see this stuff coming that could make electric stuff change dramatically like the jump from nickel to lithium did .   

 I think a hybrid style bike that has a generator and electric motor instead of a transmission would be a great mix for range and the power and simplicity of electric.   

Solid state might be 10 years from now... as it's been for a while.

I don't believe in Donut lab rainbow and unicorns, and whenever this kind of tech will be ready for production, it will not be for motorcycles first. Donut licensed the right from a Spanish company named CT Coating that had a battery cell tested over a year ago around 300 Wh/kg. That's 7% more energy density than what Stark currently uses. Check out Two bit da Vinci YouTube channel if you're interested in this.

But yeah, funny that one would need old headlines just to cope with news about some guys racing their electric dirt bike. Deep breath, they're not coming to MotoGP anytime soon, that's for sure.

Honda is quietly building a huge factory to test solid state super capacitors

All manufacturers have e-bikes ready 

The pause in development is due to be released technology 

8 hour ride time

I have watched all of the 2bit videos on donut Electric Viking and just about every video I could find on them. He did one on the BYD battery too.  in the most recent video of his he  is more optimistic about the  Donut battery than he has been. Donut was claiming 400wh/kg I thought the Varg was around 230 or 240. I  saw that Stark are going to a 26120 cell from EVE energy that is 330wh/kg this year  that charges in 10-15 minutes.  I wonder if they will  try and save weight and keep the battery the same overall wh, or go bigger .

Soon enough the Donut cells will be out in the Verge motorcycles and somebody will tear them apart and we will know more about them. I'm not totally sold that their claims will all be met, but if they are close, it is still an improvement that can change things at what they also claim is the same price as current lithium cells. A 5-10 minutes to charge 0-100 would be great even at  300wh/kg and its stability in extreme temps and drastically reduced risk of fire.   

Seems pretty easy to prove the wh/kg rating so if they lied about that its pretty dumb. But then again, that could have been an easy first thing to verify via the 3rd party testing they are having done too.  Even if the rest is true and energy density is around 300 its still a good battery. Even if the energy density is around 300, its shown that its stable in some pretty extreme temps already and while damaged too. 

 But there are  others that are a few years out that are not making claims as bold. BYD has one that will be out in 2027, and there are a couple others I've seen that are from established battery builders.  The BYD cells are going to be expensive . But with the way oil prices are these days who knows how that will impact electric vehicles and the timelines of stuff.

Last weekend was Stark debut in EnduroGP, tough first round for sure. Let's see how much they can improve from there.

Supertest: Marc Sans 24th | David Herbreteau 32nd
Day 1: Marc 29th | David 30th
Day 2: Marc 25th | David 29th

Down under, Varg riders are getting Enduro podiums and quite good results in Long track as well.

AusProMX debut is set for this weekend.

I just stumbled upon a FB Post from Karl Landrus ,of, KLP.

A "Coke Bottle" Swingarm for a Stark Varg  - I admire his work: 

 He made mention it might upset 'purists'. 

Made to customers spec of a 13mm length addition, and, the finished item being 2lbs lighter than std.

Top pic shows a std SA in front of the ( finished?) KLP one. That Sticker on the OEM one shows a desire for a 'Weld' line, from early on...... 

I've had a bloke ask me to do weld beads along the Ducati 450 swingarm's center ridge - I declined, and left him to find another Beader. 

Alestrem was the 1st round of Hard Enduro World Championship. Sudden downpour at half race made things very slippery. Eddie Karlsson was racing top3, close to Bolt and Lettenbichler then he made a mistake and lost a lot of time. Toby Martyn had a very different race, started 44th gaining places along the way to end up 9th just ahead of Eddie in 10th.

Not sure how many battery swaps they've done for the 4h race but I'd say Hard Enduro plays to the bike strength even more than EnduroGP. Also their lineup is much more experienced with the bike, they can aim for very good results in their first year in this world championship.