It’s no secret that 2-stroke motors have dominated the world of ATV drag racing for a while now. Like anything else in life, things change. Yamaha has told us that 2006 will be the final production year for both the Banshee and Blaster. ATV drag racing fans all across the country were saddened to hear this news.

We all know that 2-stroke motors will continue to thrive in ATV drag racing, it’s not going to go away all together, but we do suspect they will decline a little. A few people have already taken that into consideration and were quick to start the process of building 4-stoke drag quads that were very competitive. Here, we take a look at two different ways to use the same style of frame, one with a 4-stroke thumper, the other with a monster two stroke. There is a slight catch in this story…it’s a story of two childhood friends and a brother-in-law, all with the same goal: to build fast quads.

It’s not uncommon for the air box to be taken off completely. We all know how these 4-strokes love to breathe. Is this what you’d call breathing outside the box?

Enter into the picture, Donnie Champlin, just another guy from California. You may not believe it, but his guy doesn’t even own a quad of his own. He just likes building stuff: “I don’t like building the same thing over and over again.” With no particular background in mechanics or engineering, he just has a craft and a natural talent at building things: “I do things my way, which a lot of times people think take too long.” His brother-in-law, Danny Garcia came to him with some problems he was having fitting a CRF 450 motor into his Lonestar Chassis. “Everything up front worked fine, we just couldn’t get the motor to fit into the frame without having to cut a lot. It wasn’t tall enough to work with the motor Danny wanted to use,” Champlin says.

If the makers of SlimFast® were to ever sponsor a drag ATV, we’d bet this could be the one. It may look a little off-beat, but it gets the job done…at speeds up to 70 mph! We also liked the look of the exhaust under the seat.

So, the idea came up to use the front of one frame, and design a new chassis from the motor back. “I also had the idea to use a motorcycle seat, one that was a lot narrower than a typical quad seat, as well as the smaller gas tank,” Champlin says. Putting the muffler under the seat was also Champlin’s idea.

Champlin says, “My workshop is pretty small and I don’t have all the right tools to do everything myself. Lucky for me, my cousin who builds Sprint cars lets me use his bender and then TIG welds it all together.”

We caught up with Danny Garcia when he attended the Memorial Day racing at Sand Mountain. Although this was his first time at this racing event, he’s a regular at Dumont and Pismo. Garcia decided to go with the Honda CRF 450 (brought up to 500cc) motor for his racing power. It runs with an Athena cylinder on a stock stroke, burning 30% nitro methane. This little racer puts out 65 hp with an uphill speed of 70 mph at Sand Mountain. All the motor work is done by Curtis Sparks, including the porting, cam shaft and custom exhaust. Garcia has 18-year old Justin Brasil of Hanford CA race the quad. Garcia says, “I can almost race side-by-side with a 2-stroke motor that is making twice the horsepower, in a short distance (like a 300 ft race).”

Do you think Curtis Sparks had anything to do with this quad? It sure looks that way, everything from the motor to the exhaust. If the rear spring looks a little different, your right…its what is used for sprint cars. They have much slower recoil, keeping more down force to the rear tires.

He had the motor built in January of 2004 and to his knowledge, this was the first 4-stroke motor put into an ATV drag chassis which weighs only 200 pounds wet! This was the first of the two chassis that Champlin has built. The second chassis built by Champlin is owned by Darrin Dutra also from Hanford Ca. Champlpin and Dutra have known each other since they learned to ride bikes in kindergarten. Dutra chose to put the motor from his LT 500 “Quadzilla” into the sleek drag chassis. This motor was built by SDATV. It runs a 89mm piston (bored 3x over) which puts him at 560cc. He runs five percent nitro methane fuel through a FTZ alcohol carb. He says they removed the counter balance and installed a turbo crank by Trinity. He also had a Falicon lightened & balanced crank installed to wake up the LT motor. “A lot of people laughed at us when they saw what we were doing. Who would put a LT 500 motor in a drag chassis? Now that they’ve seen it run, they don’t say much to us,” Dutra says. “The thing that stands out the most in this quad is the tranny. It’s the only LT 500 that I know of that has an over ride 2-5. Designed by Paul Gast at Fast by Gast, it’s the same style used in the NHRA street bikes,” he adds.

When you get to this level of racing, it takes creative thinking and resources to make speed. Weight is crucial and too much of it can mean the curse of second place. Often times, like in this case…you just need to make your own equipment. You won’t find this swing arm in any dealerships or catalogs.

Dutra is one of those guys who only races for fun and not to put trophies or plaques on the wall. He says he makes about 15 trips a year to Pismo or Glamis to enjoy the hill climb racing. Darrin and his family enjoy the dunes on Holiday weekends. “Over Thanksgiving we normally go to Dumont.” He told us this event at Sand Mountain will become an annual event for their Memorial Day Weekends.

Between Danny, Darrin and Donnie they have it all covered. If they ever wanted to open a speed shop of their own, they’ve never be short on ideas. They could call it “Triple D Racing” and be known as the guys who aren’t afraid to go off the beaten path to look for the fastest way to the finish line.