1985 HONDA ATC250R

This ATC has so much history that a full documentation of it would amount to something the size of the Old Testament!

This was my second ATC. I had bought an ATC200X in 1984 and rode it until the motor self destructed. In 1987 I was fresh out of high school, and got my first real job. So the first thing I bought with my new income was this ATC250R! I went down to the Honda dealer and they were not even supposed to sell any more three-wheelers, but they had two of these left and they were blowing them out at $1599. I remember that I got the last one in the crate, because the one in the showroom had a big boot mark across the rear fenders.

Hangover Hare Scramble, Hagerstown, Maryland

I hadn’t even entered a motorcycle race at this point, but that was the plan I had in mind. I wanted to race this ATC. So in January of 1988 I went to Hagerstown, Maryland for the annual Hangover Hare Scramble put on by the Maryland Comp Riders. I think I got second behind a Kawasaki Tecate, but that was the beginning of my ATV racing addiction.

Blue/Grey Motocross, Budds Creek, Maryland

I was so into it that I entered  every type of race I could find: motocross at Budds Creek, TT at Trailways Speedway in Hanover Pa, hillclimbs in Deptford Pa. And then I found the GNCC Series. I saw the Blackwater 100 article in Dirtwheels and I knew I HAD to race it. I had seen so many photos of the stream crossings, hillclimbs, rocks, I HAD to try it.

So I packed up my van and I talked some of my buddies into going with me and we went to the most insane event ever! I drew start position #386. We all lined up in a big row of three on Main Street in Davis, West Virginia. I was so far back in the start rows that I wasn’t even in town when I lined up, I was deep in the suburbs! When I finally got to the start, I got the green flag and went about 200 feet and the course went under a bridge to a river where about 100 ATV’s were in various stages of being submerged, floating, having their spark plugs changed, having their airboxes drained, being pulled by 4×4 trucks- total chaos. I followed the hand signals of some guy standing in about 3 feet of flowing water and headed down stream with the current. I kneeled on the seat and the water was coming up over the rear fenders. There were times when I wasn’t even making contact with the bottom, I just kept the throttle on. As I turned up onto the far side bank, I couldn’t believe that I had just passed like a hundred people in one lucky move! I thought I had a chance to win this thing! As I powered up the bank, I grabbed too much throttle, the front end came up in the air violently, and I flipped back down the bank, tumbling with my ATC250R. The trike rolled and landed upside down in the raging river with a big splash. The bank had such an abrupt edge to it I had to float the ATC down the river a ways to a more gradual exit point. After draining the motor and airbox, I soldiered on and finished the Blackwater 100. One grueling 25 mile loop through the Moonrocks, Highway 93, and all the other extreme tests Dave Coombs threw my way. Now I was forever hooked on ATV’s and Cross Country racing.

Millville, New Jersey

I raced as many GNCC’s as I could in 1988: Highpoint Pa, Tarentum Pa, and I won a couple local races. Unfortunately at the end of 1988, three wheeler racing was over. No tracks were going to run a trike class in 1989, I guess because of insurance costs. So to keep racing ATVs I bought a 1989 TRX250R and parked this ATC. Over the course of the next couple of seasons I used all the parts off of this ATC that would fit on my TRX: motor, carb, electrics, I pretty much stripped it for spare parts. Then in the late 90’s I put it all back together and sold it to a buddy of mine. He was a drinker, and at one point he was being chased by the police on this thing and he went to ride up a street curb and a cop car nailed him from behind and he got arrested. The back of the frame still has a dent from the collision. Then he sold it to another buddy of mine who was going to restore it. I talked him into selling it back to me, and I bought it and started my own restoration on it.

I was racing TRX250R’s in the GNCC’s in the early 2000’s, and at the end of 2003 the GNCC’s went to a production rule Pro Class structure. This meant to race the Pro Class I had to be on a production quad. At that point I sold off my TRX250R’s, but kept a 340cc powervalve Duncan Racing motor that I had built to use for the fast tracks like the one in Okeechobee, Florida. That 340cc motor is in this ATC now, and it is crazy fast!

I don’t know if I will ever ride this trike again, in fact I am perfectly content with just keeping it in great shape as a memory of the passion that made me pursue a life devoted to racing motorcycles.

 

 

1985 HONDA ATC200X

I picked up this ATC in Rancho Cucamonga. It was sitting outside in a yard and the tires were so rotted we had to drag it out and dead-lift it into the back of my truck. All it took was a carb cleaning and some good used rubber and it was back in business! We took it up to Frazier Mountain and had a blast from the past just roosting around in the snowy pine forest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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