Weigandt:

Okay, fine, I’ll freaking do it: If the rules change to let two-strokes win races the factory teams will threaten to stop racing. It’s that simple. It would seem like the AMA/FIM/AMA Pro Racing sanctioning body alphabet soup could conceivably be able to just make whatever rule changes they want, but any promoter and any sanctioning body has to respect its own economic model and not just kick its partners in the face. Especially when the partners are the ones that actually pay the participants most of their money. 

We have a very delicate balance in this sport, as sales of bikes and gear create the salaries of the riders. TV ratings and ticket sales do not result in a direct deposit into the athlete’s bank account like they do in stick and ball sports. This is actually great, because this sport isn’t as popular as the NBA or NFL, and we need those factory teams to ensure our heroes can make a living doing this. Until supercross gets so popular that it can sign an NFL-like billion-dollar TV revenue deal and hand everyone tons of money, we can’t jack up this fragile ecosystem and scare the factories away. The races need them as much as the teams need the races.

Sorry, this isn’t the news two-stroke lovers want to hear and I also don't know what the solution is. The manufacturers are not going to vote for flushing 15 years of four-stroke MX development down the drain. Unless one of them can just build a time machine and we can fix the rules from the 1990s, when this started.

Let’s move over to landmine number two. Why does a YZ250 cost $7,399? Why does the supposedly much-more-expensive YZ250F cost $7,699? A YZ450F costs $9,199, but if anyone is serious about racing, the $1,800 difference between an all-new 2018 450 and a warmed over Bold New Graphics YZ250 is a screaming bargain. 

Further, I just researched 2001 prices--back when this transition had begun--and the YZ250 cost $5799 and the YZ426F was $5999. The $7399 price of the new two-stroke seems crazy, but the gap between the two bikes has grown since then.

There's a real problem for motocross that I state all the time: better isn't always actually better. I think we'd all like to see a bike that's slower, cheaper and safer be the superior product but this is a competitive arena and if one product is better, someone is going to race it and win on it, regardless of cost. We would have been better off if we had no idea what four-strokes were capable of. 

Look, you can make a 60-horsepower 450 four-stroke that is ridable, smooth, fast and controllable. You can make a 60 horsepower 500 two-stroke, but that much power and displacement makes it scary to ride, hard to hold onto and hard to hook up. Four-strokes find this perfect line between traction, smoothness and power. Even changing the rules to allow 450 two-strokes wouldn't even solve the problem. You'd have to go full-one back to 125 and 250cc limits. Again, anyone have a time machine?

Meanwhile, two-strokes are awesome if you can make them sing, but, heck, for some riders they are actually harder to ride. Are they as good as people really think they are?

Matthes:

No, they are a lot more work to ride and all the people crying foul over the costs of maintaining a thumper is something I don’t get. Change your oil, check your valve clearances and you’re fine. Sure, when you start adding compression to the bikes they need more money, but how many people get on a four-stroke and say “Yeah, not good enough?” For 90 percent of people that own them, they’re bulletproof. For every two top ends you do on a two-stroke, you’ll still be on your OG piston on a four-stroke IF you look after your bike.

Until the OEMs change their thinking on prices and models, all the “kooks” are pissing into the wind in my opinion.

Weigandt:

Yup, there’s the fly in the ointment of this two-stroke debate. It’s very hard to figure out what’s fact and what’s just nostalgia kicking us in the ass. I get it, an all two-stroke world would bring many other advantages to the table. My son is three years old and he loves motocross. I would feel much more comfortable knowing he was getting into an all two-stroke world because of speed and costs. 

But hey, I suck at riding. You know what? The four-stroke is way, way easier for me to ride. With a four-stroke, if you want to go three percent faster, you twist the throttle three percent more. With a two-stroke, sometimes you want three percent but then it hits and you get 20 percent. I even got bit by the retro bug three years ago and bought a KTM 250 two-stroke and found it much harder to ride than I remember. It's just hard to get a market to understand that the bike that is harder to ride is actually better. Every car buff likes manual transmissions because they make a car more fun to drive. But 99 percent of America will buy an automatic because it's easier. Four-strokes make people feel like heroes. They have wide powerbands. You can go faster with less work. Faster with less work! It's hard to tell everyone that this sucks. Because of this, I feel like the debate is more like "each bike has its strengths" instead of "two-strokes rule at everything and four-strokes are complete garbage" like we keep hearing.

The next key argument for two-strokes is that they would reduce costs for privateers. Steve, help me with your mechanical knowledge here: isn’t the 450 four-stroke the best privateer bike ever? Wasn’t the difference between a factory 250 two-stroke and a privateer 250 two-stroke MUCH bigger? Put a pipe on a 450—or don’t even bother, depending on which bike you have—and there’s enough motor to qualify for Nationals and supercross mains. In the two-stroke days, could a privateer even get a motor—at any price—that didn’t put him at a huge disadvantage? I know the 250F class is engine-dominant, but ask any old pro who raced the 125 Nationals. It was the same back then. Jeff Emig’s 1992 YZ125 was a bazillion times faster than a stock or privateer’s YZ125. I think that fact has just been forgotten by time. That's the nostalgia factor I'm talking about--the sport has never been easy on privateers. That's how racing works.

There’s really just one major reason why I would like to see two-strokes come back: you can’t go as fast with the 125/250 two-stroke class combo as you can with the 250F/450F. And to me, more speed equals more severe injuries. That fact alone is number-one on my pro two-stroke debate list. Some of the other stuff, I’m not as sure as others.

What do you think? Are two-strokes really better for privateers? Are four-strokes more dangerous?

Matthes:

You’re right. Generally speaking, in 2017 fans cry out for two-strokes and privateers. Hence why a privateer ON a two-stroke named Stank Dog is killing it these days. I had Stank in-studio for the Pulpmx Show a month ago and he was telling me some of his financials and I was blown away at how much support he gets for being Stank Dog and being on a two-stroke. Anyway, yeah if you were to go back to all two-strokes then this would actually hurt the privateers a ton compared to now. In the premier class, it doesn’t take as much to make a production bike close to the factory guys as it did in the two-stroke days. 

Back in 1998 I went to Loretta Lynn’s to work for Honda because my rider was hurt and was asked (re: forced) to stick around the week after for the Loretta Lynn’s quad national which I didn’t know even existed. I remember that week being full of guys trying to make the last gen of Honda TRX’s (I think 1989 or something?) competitive because those were still the last racing quads around at that time. So I ask you, if we still had two-strokes or brought them back, what would we be looking at as far as tech? Professional SX and MX is the MotoGP, the F1, etc. of motorcycle racing and there wasn’t much advancement of two-strokes the last five years or so of production bikes. The OEMs were struggling to provide new tech for people and that’s a bad thing. I mean, I guess we’d have EFI by now, but what else?

As far as being more dangerous, I’m 100 percent with you on lower speeds equal less injuries—that’s common sense. But I’ve told this story before: in 1998 there were four factory riders at the final round in Vegas which made it a boon for privateers to get into the main. At the Coliseum earlier that year the factories fielded, I think, 11 guys. So the point is there were a ton of injuries in ’98 on two-strokes and professional SX and MX racing is just inherently dangerous. But, yes, I agree with you on the speed stuff.

I’ll tell you WHAT is the future Weege and that’s the Alta Redshift. Yeah, yeah they’re very pricey but look at the tech you’re getting for that money and you don’t have any maintenance costs. Or fuel costs! And the price is sure to come down, right?

I recently rode an Alta and I couldn’t believe how fun it was. It felt light (even though it’s not), it worked like a regular bike, and the best part is you can ride it anywhere. I was very impressed. You know the other OEMs have this thing in their R&D departments and are working away at topping it. With all the land issues, I’m 100 percent on-board with these being a part of the future. Love it!