A Pair of Customized Yamahas

We had the chance on a recent trip to Dumont Dunes to check out a pair of fully custom ATVs, one built on a relatively shoestring budget by a regular guy and one built by a shop for an owner who wanted only the very best.

Thanks to Skip Yaro from Sandtech Racing (STR), Greg Garabedian Jr. and Allen Knowles from CT Racing for spending some time with their machines and us.

This is what happens when the only limits are of your own design. Parts Direct (a mail-order parts company) wanted the most potent Yamaha Raptor money could buy to showcase its products. If there was a trick part to be had or if performance could be increased in any incremental way, this machine would have it done. There were a couple of caveats. First, the company wanted to keep the heart and soul of the Raptor alive with minimal frame and motor changes. Second, the bright red Raptor had to work in a number of scenarios, from trail riding to dunes to the occasional motocross.

Skip Yaro put this machine together to maximize the Raptor's strong points and eliminate its weak ones. As the Raptor is already a superior duner, little was needed in the engine department. Dunes are all about horsepower and so are Raptors, hence only a mild massaging was necessary to get the most out of the motor and do so with a high degree of reliability. A Sparks Racing 686cc kit was applied to the stock engine. Although only a 26cc bump over the stock powerplant, the new motor was fully ported and the compression bumped to 13:1.

On the other hand, a Raptor has some significant pitfalls on motocross duty. It's a well-known fact that Raptors carry their weight up high, which inhibits cornering ability. To counteract this inherent trait, Yaro widened the front end considerably. Using plus-two-long and plus-four-wide Eyeball Engineering A-arms up front and a two-over Eyeball swingarm, he made the Raptor a more stable platform for its heart-stopping motor. A Durablue Eliminator four-over axle not only widened the machine but boosted durability for susceptible components. To further lower the machine, increase stability and improve the suspension action, TCS shocks were installed in both front and rear.

We got a chance to ride the STR Raptor briefly during our photo shoot. It's definitely a beast of a machine, but an amiable one. The motor pulls hard from bottom to top, with a bit more vibration than the stock Yamaha. The Raptor's low-speed friendliness is sacrificed to make for more high-speed stability. At low speeds the wide, long machine is vague and imprecise, but with increased velocity this bird of prey comes into its own. A twist of the wrist launches the front end skyward in any gear. But despite this, the powerband is very user-friendly, allowing lugging as well as revving until you can't take the vibes anymore. Suspension action from the TCS shocks is good, soaking whoops and carving bumpy corners well, but the Raptor always lets you know it's a substantial machine.

Greg Garabedian Jr. has always been a hands-on kinda guy. Beginning back in high school, he built a Pro Street '53 Ford Pickup--that he still owns--and later a '71 big-block Chevy-powered flat-bottom boat. Garabedian has also been a sand racer for as long as he can remember, owning an assortment of high-powered dune carvers and hillclimbers, finally getting the used '93 Banshee you see here back in '96.

But the Banshee didn't exactly look like this when he got it. It was a mostly stock unit for most of its 10 years until last spring. After the end of the sand season at Glamis last year, Garabedian decided to make the machine do everything he'd always wanted it to do.

You see, he's the competitive sort and loves racing up the withering heights of Oldsmobile Hill at Glamis, and was pretty sick of getting beaten as often as he was. But unlike other drag-racing enthusiasts, Garabedian wasn't content to make a machine that would tear up the hill two or three times a day then get put back in the truck; he wanted a machine that could carve the big dunes as well.

All engineering is a compromise, so Garabedian set out to find the best combination of power and high-speed handling that didn't preclude a bit of dune surfing on the side. He had his work cut out for him.

One thing was a no-brainer: He needed a bigger engine. For this he chose a CT Racing 450cc kit. With a trued and welded crank, a beefed-up main bearing and a custom-cast cylinder with 72mm of bore (8mm more than stock), the 450 had power to scream up the big dunes yet be stout enough to be an all-day rider. Hand-assembled, ported and tuned by Steve Peterson at CT, this custom also received an interchangeable-dome billet head and Delta V-Force reed cages. To feed the 450's 91 horsepower to the rear wheel, a Hinson clutch basket with straight-cut gears was employed along with a trick clutch lockout from Direct Drive. This setup allows maximum power to the rear wheels with an easier clutch pull than stock.

The next part was the toughest. To get enough power to the ground for racing yet not sacrifice ride quality when

playing in the dunes is walking a fine line. Garabedian settled on an 8-inch-over oval-tube DNM swingarm in the rear and Laeger's plus-two wide and plus-one forward A-arms in the front. Suspending the whole assemblage are TCS reservoir shocks up front with a TCS-rebuilt stock rear shock.

Aside from pure performance, the Banshee had to look the part of a dune racer. For the shiny bits, Garabedian used--and recommends--Orange County Plating for the chrome and Central Powder Coating for the paint.

So you've got to be wondering, did it work? Well, to a degree, yes. The machines that come out of their trucks solely to race up big hills and then go back to sleep still, for the most part, beat this well-rounded duner. But Garabedian claims just about anything else gets stomped by his beastie. Of course, he has the satisfaction of riding his quad all day long in the big dunes, too.