VOL. 53 ISSUE 6 FEBRUARY 17, 2016 P69
How do you make a [Baja] bike
handle? I could ride down a dirt
road and know. But once you
get into the woods, the rocks,
the roots, that's been a learning
curve for us, which I enjoy; it's
been a challenge. It broadens
my education in dirt bike setup
and everything."
Dialing in a 250 is a whole
new challenge for Campbell and
his team. After all, in Baja, you
don't race a 250 if you want to
win it all, so Campbell has zero
experience working with 250s;
that's where Bollinger comes in.
He already has a lot knowledge
riding a CRF250R in the woods.
"The 250 is a new bike for us
as far as setup and stuff. We've
only scratched the surface with
the 250," says Campbell. "Now
that we have Bollinger on the
team, he has quite a few years
on a CRF250R, we're learning
that bike as well. It's not too dif-
ferent than the 450 setup, but
when you ride the two bikes,
they seem quite different be-
cause of the mass of the motor
and the weight and stuff. So,
with the 250, what we've been
doing is just working on getting
torque out of the motor but at the
same time keeping that free-rev
and light-feeling motor charac-
ter, and we have achieved that,
I believe. Trevor is real happy
with the bike. He says it's faster
than his '15 that had more motor
mods than what this bike does.
This bike is stock with some
head porting and mapping. We
stuck an aftermarket air boot
on it, which was surprisingly
beneficial, and with a Pro Circuit
exhaust, I think the bike is good
and we're going to start the sea-
son and see where we land."
"As far as suspension, Trevor
is a little bit bigger than I am [and
Bach], so he likes a little firmer
setting than Chris and myself.
He rides a lot more aggressive;
the 250 allows you to ride more
aggressively, so him being a big-
ger guy that rides more aggres-
sive, it can accept a lot firmer
suspension setup and chassis
setup. With the 450, you kind of
have to do a little bit of a ballet
with it, because you have plenty
of horsepower.
"Watching Trevor ride the
250, he rides at higher rpm's
and takes different lines than the
450 riders, because you have to
be able to keep your momentum
up, so we don't want to go too
crazy on the motor before we
(Far left) The team has tested
single mufflers but prefer the
performance out of the dual-
muffler system. (Left) First order
of business is a larger fuel tank.
This will be the JRC team's
first venture in the XC2
class in GNCC.
