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They said the exact same thing about the Yam 450 until Star got hired to run the team….
I’ve got 40 years of experience thanks. Obviously the engine does make a difference. I just have a hard time believing it’s night and day.
Breaking news: Kawis dont turn as well as Suzukis Or Hondas lol.
It’s not a dark mystery anymore, as Prado brought it to light. The bike is to ridged, also Kawi didnt let Prado try PC Parts on his bike either even tho Kawi said they were trying anything and everything for Prado, but they sure let Sexton try PC parts and suspension. Tomac left for the some reason, Kawi doesn’t let riders steer to far from certain things/parts or settings. Tomac goes to Star and let him test and use what he wants and goes out and wins the supercross and outdoor championships his first year on the Yamaha.
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Febvre is not on a production frame lol he’s an elite rider on a factory team, MXGP rules are different than AMA when it comes to bikes, MXGP teams can modify the frames, AMA doesn’t allow that. We’ve known Sexton is a head case, and reading between the lines of former Factory Kawi riders, the bike isnt that great and Kawi doesn’t let riders go to far with certain things and settings. Look at AC’s career with Kawi is another example. You won’t hear him bad mouth the bike tho cause he’s loyal to Kawi tho, I bet his career woulda been better off switching brands when he went to the 450 class but we will never know I guess.
Last year he was on a production frame and swing arm when he won the MXGP Championship.
If you followed the sport you would know that.
https://gatedrop.com/romain-febvre-kawasakis-big-hope-and-50k-frames/
I’ve seen interviews claiming the opposite. I suspect they were told to congirm it was a productionframe to minimize the negative pr from the US. They don’t exactly have to be truthful, and they are working for the same brand
They also say Chase’s engine is stock…so I don’t know man….
Is anyone saying the 250 is great?
Tomac is literally one of the greatest riders in history - he could win on any bike. He won on Honda, he won on Yamaha, he was winning on KTM before the weird covid fall-off or whatever happened there. I don't think his success on Kawi is indicative that the Kawi is fine - I think he won in spite of Kawi's issues. Think of all the weirdo rides he had in 2017-2019 that prevented him from winning those SX championships... I can't help but think that was due to bike issues.
Chase said his engine was stock and management told him to stop saying that.
Not saying it’s great but it’s having good success and consistency in comparison so the 250 is not the train wreck people say the team 450 is. Chase’s complaint is chassis related. Hard to believe the added weight and inertia of the 450 engine makes that drastic of a difference. It certainly doesn’t on the stock 250/450.
It's not a stock engine. It's a factory engine with stock power.
When Chase said they went back to stock, I believe he meant back to the base setting, which was developed for Jorge (more torque/ bottom-mid). The team said it was not stock.
Regardless of any of that my point is that management or the team were never saying it was a stock motor, Chase was saying that and they told him to stop because it wasn't true.
Actually its the opposite they went from the long header pipe motor (which Prado ran) to the shorter header and quicker reving motor just before he got hurt and have continued to work with that setup since
I don`t think I saw the long header pipe on Prado`s bike 🤔
All depends on what they changed internally. The long header was probably a quick fix for what the engine configuration was lacking.
However (totally surmising) after they were forced to dig deeper and made major changes, maybe the header wasn't needed anymore?
Regardless exhaust tuning tends to be a lesser value than internals and can be altered to suit individual rider characteristics.
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Per the Lewis interview with Chase, that is not at all what he meant.
Meanwhile Garrett Marchbanks has shown he’s all heart. The kid (24yo) has had a tough going in his rookie year, but has shown a late season consistency and progression throughout the last 8 races. He got 7th at Daytona (which indicates positive outdoors potential imo). He’s finished 10th or better at six of the last 8 races (Indy p14, Cleveland p11). Steady improvement.
Hey Garrett, thanks for commenting...
Wait until outdoors. Bike will throw him down couple times because he wont slow down like Prado when track is rough and that will end his run with Kawasaki. Bike might work when track is flat but wont handle when its rough.
why? they dont know how to set high-speed compression or linkage ratio?
That’s what it sounded like to me, and the team confirmed it’s far from “stock”, so what do you think he meant?
It’s not the bike, it’s the team…
There are those out there that don’t think that bike is that good either. Zach-o talked about it recently on one of the moto 60 pods. And outside of hammaker no one has really done much on that bike this year.
To me riding a 250 and 450 of the same brand back to back feels like two entirely different machines, handle entirely different. But just my opinion.
I by no means agree with Chase and the team asked him to stop saying it due to confusion. However, Chase said stock and when pressed on it followed that up with a “I mean basically stock with air box and ecu changes.” On one of the shows Lewis is on(can’t remember which one), someone asked Lewis about it and he reiterated that Chase meant stock as is in oem, however Kawasaki bosses said that it isn’t a stock engine so Lewis was laughing about it.
The delusional Chase fan in me feels like its going to turn around outdoors lol. I'm just pumped mx is here even though we've still got an amazing sx season to wrap up. I'm usually over sx at this point in the year.
Maybe - Chase has already slowed down in SX to keep finishing. If you believe anything Prado said last year - the bike is great in SX (!!!) but not good in MX. So is the worst coming in outdoors? Damn I hope not. I want Sexton to mix it up with Jett/Eli/Hunter/Deegan.
Sexton won’t beat Deegan, Lawrence, or Lawrence in a single moto outdoors.
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