Offroadmotorcycles.ca was fortunate to be given the chance to race test CMRC/WEC Pro Cross Country Championship leader Chris VanHove’s RM-Z250F at Motopark. Rather than force you to suffer watching an old spode flop around in last place, we enlisted www.offroadmotorcycles.ca test rider and CMRC/WEC Jr Cross Country Championship leader Matt McCarthy to be our guinea pig.

Matt McCarthy is an interesting guy. He grew up with a ¼ mile flat track in his back yard…and a swamp. Naturally, being surrounded by dirt track and speedway racers from an early age, he became a good rider on the high-speed dirt oval…and in the swamp. He’s a licensed motorcycle mechanic and rides a Ducati crotch rocket, but prefers to work on custom Harleys when he isn’t busy working in the steel industry. He’s raced hare scrambles, enduros and motocross, but only for fun and never seriously enough to rack up any points. That odd combination of skills, his weekend warrior attitude and his personable manner make him a great test pilot!

This season we talked McCarthy into racing Guy Giroux’s old BMW G450X at the Port Colborne round of the CMRC/WEC series. He dug that bike, which well suited his (and Giroux’s!) aggressive riding style, and put the thing on the Jr. Class podium. At Burnt River McCarthy rode his ancient 2003 RM250 to second at the DirtyBikes Sprint Enduro, despite have to take apart the clutch basket on the side of the trail to repair a loose clutch hub bolt. The following day, having crashed his face off several times on Saturday, he wobbled around the cross-country race on his beat up old bike and finished fourth. At Motopark he had the opportunity every young rider dreams of: The chance to race a Pro-level bike!

Chris VanHove needs no introduction. He’s the youngest Pro National champ in history, taking the CMA Hare Scramble title at just 16. He’s ridden for KTM, Husky and now Suzuki. This season he ran away with round-one of the CMRC/WEC series, got third at the Burnt River Cross-Country after being hospitalized most of the week before and spending Saturday night working at a Buck and Doe. At Motopark he took second on his RM-Z450F and currently leads the Pro Class by 11 points. VanHove is primed to race his 250 in the CEC series this summer…the exact same RM-Z250 he so graciously offered to let McCarthy race this weekend at Motopark.

VanHove’s Suzuki Canada/Gopher Dunes/Lockharts Odyssey/ Amsoil/Cycle Improvements/Steve Simms Racing/Alpinestars/Shift/Yoshimura/Spy/Swampy’s RM-Z250F is trick. VanHove, at 200-ish pounds, is pretty big for a 250F but he swore the thing has tons of power. At the Port Colborne race, watching this aerial video footage, /journal/2010/5/30/an-offroadmotorcyclesca-eye-in-the-sky-look-at-the-port-colb.html you can witness his holeshot on the Pro Class stretch out to epic proportions. Over the past week, former OTSFF Suzuki motocross team tuner Steve Simms performed some electronic magic on the fuel injection settings, making the little bike pull even harder than it did back then. For some sick reason VanHove was stoked to let McCarthy beat it up at Motopark.

Careful setup is evident everywhere you look on the bike. Jerry DeMeester built the dry brake system for the stock aluminum gas tank.

The rear brake pedal is an indestructible folding job, anchored to the frame with a very heavy brake snake.

The rads are full of Water Wetter, with a trick aluminum catch tank to help increase volume and keep the hard working little thumper cool. The rad hoses are wrapped in exhaust header wrap, covered with tinfoil to keep it dry and reflect heat from the Yoshimura exhaust header.

Stock Suzuki brake pads slow down the stock Suzuki 21”/19”wheels, with Michelin tires and Mousse tubes providing traction and flat prevention. VanHove likes to run worn out Mousse inserts, claiming he likes the softer feel. A stock clutch feeds power to the sealed RK chain, which spins stock Suzuki sprockets and motocross gearing. The front sprocket clip is kept in place with a bead of silicone goop. You start looking closer and more neat stuff magically appears.

The airbox has been modified, cut open on the sides to increase airflow through coarse foam vents. A Works Connection skid plate protects the engine and frame rails. Every electrical connection is smeared with dielectric grease.

Jim Hunt at Cycle Improvements/MX Tech has developed top-secret VanHove suspension specs that he says are ‘soft enough’ on smaller impacts but ramp up very quickly into the ‘super-stiff’ zone on bigger impacts. McCarthy says the bike is even stiffer than Giroux’s BMW, which was in fact so stiff we rode it indoors at arenacross tracks and outdoors at motocross tracks all Spring with no problem, other than it being too stiff… McCarthy, the same weight as VanHove, whined about the stiff suspension on the RM-Z when he first rode the bike Saturday afternoon at Motopark. “Just get used to it and hit stuff harder,” VanHove told him. “It only works when you hit stuff really, really hard and really fast. Quit being such a pussy and ride the damn thing!”

The trickest single item you’ll find on the VanHove RM-Z is a Steve Simms-modified Honda steering damper hidden behind the numberplate. Suzuki’s are known to turn great but to get the heebie geebies at speed. With the Simms/Honda damper VanHove’s bike is a freight train. Limenine graphics make the whole thing look pretty.

So how’d it go? When the pack roared off the line McCarthy was sitting there, unable to get the bike to start despite VanHove slapping him in the back of the head for forgetting the starting ritual. Once McCarthy got the got the bike lit he took off, riding wild and blind in the dust. He surprised everyone in the pits when he came around after lap-one up near the front, after having passed literally fifty people.

Now in third place McCarthy (on the inside) kept the RM-Z on the pin and smashed his way to second by lap two. By lap three McCarthy was out front in the Jr Class. But he was also getting tired and his balls-out luck was running out.

Earlier that morning, at breakfast, VanHove said he’d had a nightmare about McCarthy totalling his bike. Well, reality fell short of that but McCarthy did bail hard several times. He’d crash hard, get back and charge his way back up to third. Then second. The first, then he’d crash and do it all over again, almost every lap. Brutal!

After a well-rehearsed stop for gas at the one-hour mark McCarthy tore off again, riding a little smarter this time and hanging on to second for the duration of the race. McCarthy’s second place gives him a 10-point lead in the Jr Class, despite riding a different bike at each round!

The VanHove family was stoked to see McCarthy put their bike on the podium; talk about seeing double, since VanHove put his other #21 Suzuki in second in the Pro class three hours later! On the way home McCarthy was doing math in his head, trying to decide if maybe it was time to get a four-stroke. He couldn’t believe how hard the engine on VanHove’s bike pulled, from bottom to top. The gearing was perfect for the fast Motopark course and the suspension that seemed too stiff the day before was just about right at race speed. McCarthy plans to beg Cycle Improvements/MX Tech to duplicate the VanHove suspension set up on his own bike…only a little softer please! All that armour plating and crash proofing really paid off too, so the bike wasn’t totalled after all.

So can a large-bodied Pro race a 250F in the woods? Well, duh. But can a Jr rider work with the same machine? The incredible attention to detail of the VanHove RM-Z pays off at any skill level, especially in long off-road races. Steve Simms’ expertise at tuning and Jim Hunt’s amazing suspension modifications worked wonders. But would McCarthy have finished in the same position on a different bike? “Nope. We’ll…maybe, but no,” stammered McCarthy when I finally made him cough up the bottom line to his race report. “Giroux’s old BMW race bike was really good, but VanHove’s Suzuki is better. Way better actually…it’s just so easy to go fast on.” With that McCarthy stared out the car window and went back to working out the math so he could perhaps offer to buy the bike from VanHove after the CEC season…

Thank you VanHove family for being so supportive of www.offroadmotorcycles.ca and giving Matt McCarthy this great opportunity!