Hopeful news here from a rainy Europe. I guess I have to share this with all off you two-stroke friends world-wide as it is a great development in the current Dutch MX. It’s a result again of YZ-specialist Peter van de Laar, of www.vdlaarracing.com, well known for transforming YZ 125 and 250’s into perfect 2012-look machines.
Now the mechanic of this company is rider and pure 2stroke tuner Ton van Grinsven. He transformed a stock YZ250 into a gigantic torque producing YZ265. While grabbing the holeshot with it in a race for the Dutch Open Class Championship he hit a pole and got injured. It was obvious that the bike has potential and that was seen by everyone, including one of The Netherlands’ best MXers; William Saris. This former GP rider was kind off tired riding and training with several brands of 450s. He was willing to try the ‘holeshot-twostroke, as it had no rider. Training went really well; riding the much lighter and easier bike gave him back the fun and lust in riding, and the machine didn’t wear him out.
So William decided to enter the competition with it, now a month ago. Since then he has won ALL (8) moto’s he entered and most off them with A MINUTE advantage on the second man at the end, and a holeshot at the start even in extreme muddy situations and uphill starts against very well prepared 450’s!! Now he has not yet ridden a competition against current GP riders, but that is going to happen in a couple of weeks. If these test-cases work out right, the team considers even competing on a YZ250 in the deep sand GP at Lierop in the first weekend of September. The 25 year old scored here on his ‘home’ GP circuit in 2008 already 16th and 11th place finishes in the heats. Can he now in one and a half month write history with scoring World Championship points on a 2stroke? Would Yamaha notice it??
Article by TSM guest editor Arie Crooijmans.
