The (now late) South Metro Motorsports had a nearly new 426 on the floor late in the year. It was a trade-in. I was looking at it for quite a while, probably over a month and no one bought it. As mentioned in the last exciting installment, I unexpectedly was offered a trade-in deal. Shortly after, it was in my garage.

I think the reason this auto-bore-ography stalled out for so long was writing this segment. Even eight years later, the exact details of the “starting troubles” are cloudy, almost like my brain is trying to protect itself. I need to move to the next decade in order to continue this sequence of pointless recollections, so here’s what I recall:

After getting the trade-in during the week, the next Sunday was a race at Mankato, one of my favorite tracks. I had to go with the springs that were in there, which were sprung for someone 80 lbs heavier than me. The reason I liked Mankato was because of the really steep hills. On this day, I found the breaking bumps at the bottom of the first big downhill were not nearly as fun with a “hard-tail”. That only got worse as the day wore on.

I made it through practice OK, but then on the start of the first moto, I either hit the gate or stalled it by dumping the clutch too fast (something I don’t think I’d ever done before at a race) . Like I said, the memories are a bit vague. Anyway, after stalling, I couldn’t start it. After hearing a bunch of four-stroke derogatory terms and anti-cam-etic phrases the whole time, this was 2000, I got going it going in time to drop in behind the guy in third as he was coming around for his second lap. My main memory of the second moto is trying not to get bucked off the bike on the big braking bumps.

This would become a common theme. One moto where things went OK, and another that had a lap or so worth of kicking the bike to the point of exhaustion. I did get the correct springs in it after that first race, but the bike always felt heavy to me and I didn’t have confidence jumping it. I stopped racing and started riding a near jumpless grass track and it was a great bike for that. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the kind of track they had races on in 2000. So I went into the end of the year thinking about selling the bike.

I put in ad in the local web classifieds with the ahead-of-it’s-time phrase, “Willing to trade for good condition two-stroke 250”. I immediately got a call and on a cold day shortly before New Year 2001, the 426 was gone, replaced with what would become a long-time member of my garage. A bike that would take me to the glory of the year-end award. A bike that would live in infamy.

The bad experience with the 426 soured me to four-strokes so much that I stubbornly clung to the premix-burners way past when that was fashionable. There are no pictures of this bike. That’s all I have to say about that.