Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127787
·DIRT TRACKTECH J&MRacing P roducts/KTM Factory 600 Dirt Tracker KTM has otflclally steppad Inl o the dirt tra ck wars with this J&M Rac ing-built 600. The Mattlghofen, AustrIa-based company hopes to wrestIa the 600cc National m Ionsl1lp crown away from neighboring Rotax. I) 8 irt track racing is full of secrets, wh ether real or imagined. Th e extremel y competitive nature of the spo rt all but demands that when a team figures out a wa y to get a leg up on the competition, it will keep its m outh shut, because once the cat is out of th e bag, that ever-crucial adv antage ma y be lost. So it has been that for the past thr ee years, J&M Racing Products o,w ne r Mike Ow en has been keeping his mouth sh u t whil e tackling the monumental task of trying to groom another Austrian -power ed machine - a KTM - int o a competitive a lte rnative to th e all -con qu er in g Rot a xes that ha ve been th e benchmark in the 600cc dirt track class for over 10 years. Others have tried to d o th e sa me th in g and faile d, but the Maryland-based fram e bu ilder has stuck with the p roject through try ing times, By Scott Rousseau I Photos by WIlliam Mills and Flat Trak Fotos and some five years after the project began with the purchase of a 1991 four stroke unit, it is finally beginning to pay off. The machine that yo u see her e is now the official KTM factory dirt tracker. With rising Grand National star Mike Ha cker contracted to ride th e factory equipmen t in '96 and Owen contracted as the Team Mana ger, the Mattighofen, Au stri a-based company h as becom e only the second offi cial fact ory d irt effort and the first new factory to join th e Grand N ational sce ne since th e departure of Team Honda at the end of 1988. For Owen , w ho got hi s s tart in the frame bu siness by acting as a distributor for W ash ingt on ch assis m a n Terry Knigh t, the KTM p roject began in 1991 after he purchased an engine from the factory in th e ho pe of w rapping tubes arou nd it and continuing th e development that had begun on the West Coast by the White Brothers, Tom and Dan. "The White Brothers had gotten one of th e motors fr om KTM back then," Owen recalls. "The way it all started was that the motors had a probl em with the kick start me ch an ism where it w ou ld kick back and bu st the cases. Instead of tr yin g to fix it , th ey jus t took a ll the motors - and 1 believe it was something like 200 of them - they took all of them all out of the fram es and shipped them back to th e fact or y and put a ll new motors in the bikes. But they set a few aside. Whi te Brot hers put a com p lete bike toget her using one, and Harry lillie, who is a motor builder on the West Coa st, had one. He ha d pu t together a few for (m ini) sp rin t car use, but that was about it. 1 thought it would be a neat project, so 1 called KTM and bought one. I think at that time 1 paid about $2500 for it . Terry Knight w as going to build a chassis for it, and 1 was going to work on the motor, but Terry never came through with his end of the bargain." Three year s went by, and business d ealings between Kn ight and Owen br oke d own ev en fu rth er. Thus Owen made the d ecis ion to en ter th e chass is business o n hi s ow n, and he quickly began to d e velop a r eputation as a rather sa vvy tube bender . Al ong th e way, he elected to make the stalled KTM project one of his calling cards. "I asked mysel f what was th e best th ing to do to get my name out there. 1 figu re d that if 1 bu ilt a Rotax fram e, it wo uld just be like the other 120 frames th at s how up at Daytona . Nobody