the WP Pro Components catalog for
the race bike.
"It's not stock, but the suspension
is available to the public," Parker
says. "It's WP pro components,
valved and sprung by Konflict
Motorsports in Texas. This particu-
lar fork is stressed to 270mm. The
pro components you can buy are
240mm of travel, which is about
10 inches. These are stretched to
270mm, which is about 11 inches.
So, in order for Wes to run that
hard, we need as much travel as
we can get. It's a little bit of a horse
to get on, especially with the KTM
PowerParts seat. You're on your
toes, but in order for a bike to go
that fast, that's what you need. But
once you're on it, it feels like a nor-
mal dirt bike. If you go from that bike
to a stocker, you feel like you're on a
scooter. You feel cramped again be-
cause of the pullback on the bars."
VOLUME 57 ISSUE 19 MAY 12, 2020 P41
"Same thing, WP Pro Components," says Parker. "The front you can
stretch with the stock components, but the rear takes a different shaft.
Conflict Motorsports has a custom shaft put in the shock. That's where
we get the extra travel out of the rear."
The show rolls on a Dunlop D908 RR Rally Raid tire (IRC M5B in the
sand dunes) at the rear and a Golden Tire GT 216AA Fatty up front.
"Wes will put more damage on a 908 in 150 miles than I'll do in 1000
miles at Baja," says Parker. "He's just twisting the thing. We literally went
through a mousse tube a day, which gets expensive, but we don't want
to risk that thing disintegrating. They don't really make mousse inserts for
the big bikes yet. They're still kind of soft. They simulate really low pres-
sure and they get beat up, so we have to swap it every day."
As for the navigation kit, Parker teamed up with Rally X to fit one of the
Italian rally kits. "The Rebel X rally kits are quite popular. They use some
of the KTM factory rally components in there and they kind of build the
system," Parker says. "Rebel X has great components for this that you
can buy, but it's kind of one-size-fits-all for everybody. Because we have
a machine shop and a full fabrication shop, we can make anything we
want. So, we built the billet tower that's fully adjustable. We're going to do
a second iteration where it's crushable, not as strong. It's a balance be-
cause you want the towers to be strong, but if the rider hits it, you want it
to give way. You want it to be like a crumple zone in a car. It's a balance.
You don't want to make it too delicate so it just breaks for no reason, and
you don't want to make it so strong that it's going to hurt the rider—like
when Pablo Quintanilla went off the dune in Dakar a few years ago."
W H A T A B O U T
T H E R E A R ?
Wes Vannieuwenhuise would often wheelie up the dunes on the mighty 790.
