On the way home from a recent trip to California we decided to take a slight detour and visit the world famous Glen Helen MX track. As we arrived at the Glen Helen gate, the security guard let us know that factory Yamaha star Grant Langston had just left - it was then that we knew we might be in for a treat. The track was open for practice and there were several pro and pro-am riders out doing some quick laps, including Cyle Chislock on his new Monster Energy Kawasaki KFX450 R.

It was the first day of riding on a new engine built by DASA, and Cyle was there practicing for the upcoming weekend's ITP Quadcross race. Keen to take advantage of running into Cyle and his Monster-backed team, we spent a few minutes with the young rider to hear his thoughts on the new Kawasaki and to check out the machine.

Moving from a privateer team Honda TRX450R has been a bit of an adjustment for Cyle.

“The power on the Kawasaki is much different from last year’s Honda. The quad rips in its stock form. When we added dampening it obviously sucked up some power. So we are now trying to build holeshot power that is smooth enough to hold onto for a full moto.”

The Chislock team relies heavily on DASA and Kawasaki for engine performance and according to Cyle, “with DASA on-board we are confident in having the engine figured out very soon, they build the best”.

Aside from the engine Cyle is extremely happy with the rest of the machine; the chassis and suspension are both performing well.

“The unique frame front clip design on the Kawasaki places the front A-arms back-to-back, separated only by the lower frame beam", according to Team Manager Troy Chislock.

The theory behind this design is to eliminate bump steering as well as provide more front-end travel. This design is very familiar to Roll Design, as they originally designed and built an aftermarket ATV chassis called “The Lobo.”

Throughout the years, many would agree that the Lobo was the best of the best when it came to high performance. Some refer to the Lobo as the Rolls Royce of ATV racing machines. Since the new KFX is very similar to the original Lobo design, it eliminated a lot of the initial research and development work required when working with a new project and enabled Roll to build a high performance front end relatively quickly.

It’s no wonder Kawasaki called upon Roll Design to build A-arms for their Factory racing effort.

Although Chislock is backed by Monster Energy Drinks and supported by Kawasaki this year, the team still remains a privateer effort based out of Murrieta, CA. Cyle’s father Troy is involved with the daily operations of Roll Design as co-owner of IMS-ROLL, a company that offers after market ATV components, and brings a long list of excellent products to Cyle's machine. Roll Design front a-arms are coupled to Elka Factory shocks that allow the team to make adjustments to high and low speed dampening of compression and rebound externally. These shocks have only been available to accomplished racers, however Elka has recently announced that the Factory shock is now available to the general ATV racer.

Dealing with a brand new machine this late in the year has proved to be a little bit of a challenge for the team.

“Researching and developing a new machine this late in the year is far from ideal” states Chislock. “However we feel extremely fortunate to be a team chosen to do so.”

Half way through the season Chislock is just now beginning to race his KFX, but he has spent a lot of time on KFX’s even before they were released to the public. Kawasaki called on Cyle’s expertise throughout the winter to conduct endurance tests on the new machine and provide feedback to the engineers. This gives Cyle a fighting chance when attempting to switch brands mid year. Cyle will finish the 2007 ITP Quadcross season on the KFX450R. Cyle will also be racing in select WORCS and WPSA events. SCORE Baja plans have yet to be confirmed, but he may be racing a truck or car in that event this November.

Cyle definitely looked like he was fast when we saw him out at Glen Helen but he didn’t have any competition there that day. A few days after our shoot Cyle raced the ITP Quadcross race at Glen Helen and finished 7th in the first moto, and after a first turn pile-up, finished 16th in the second moto, for a 10th place overall. Cyle’s team realizes they have their work cut out for them and assures us that they will continue the R&D that will be required to get their Monster Energy Chislock Racing #222 Kawasaki to the front.