❏ When we think of hybrid quads,
those thoughts take us back to the
late ‘90s and early 2000s when there
was an odd transition going on in
ATV racing. We’re talking about a
time before quads like the LT-Z400,
YFZ450, TRX450R, LTR450R, DS450
and KFX450R were released. The
EPA was staking the heart of racing
two-stroke engines. With Yamaha’s
Doug Henry winning the 1998 outdoor
national motocross championship
aboard the Yamaha YZ400F, people
began embracing the capabilities of
four-stroke engines. That embrace
extended to the ATV community.
Since few sport quads had been produced since 1989, the Pro ATV classes
had a non-production bias. You could
run aftermarket chassis, engines and
different engine displacements in the
same class. Pro riders started installing the new high-performance four-stroke dirt bike engines into customized ATV frames. Those builds led the
way for the manufacturers to build
the high-performance ATVs of today.
The national pro series now has a
Rath has an adjustable billet-aluminum
sway bar for different tracks. The RR
chromoly A-arms are wider and forward
from OEM and have sway-bar mounting
tabs.
production rule, but with Yamaha
being the only manufacturer producing a 450 (the YFZ450R) and with the
state of ATV racing as whole, we have
a feeling that rule won’t last.
Daryl Rath, owner of Rath Racing,
was one of those pro ATV riders who
built some of the first hybrids. His
newest creation is for his youngest
son, Tucker Rath. It’s a doppelgänger
of Daryl’s TT TRX450R, but with a
fuel-injected CRF250R engine. This is
one lucky kid!
LONG LIVE THE HYBRID
Rath wanted a replica of his
TRX450R for his son, Tucker, but with
a smaller powerplant, as Tucker is
only 14 years old and can’t race the
