Badlands 10-04-01
Kiowa and I decided to take a one day trip to the Badlands, my mother bought a
motor home, took it on a trip and averaged 5.3 mpg so I rebuilt the carb and needed
to take it on a test ride, I also needed to put some time on the Challenger to test out 
a few changes and how the suspension works in the real world.



That is not fog it is dust! I wish it had rained the night before but no such luck.

The rear of the Challenger is about 5" wider than my Pilot this makes doing power slides a blast.

The suspension is limited, the front shocks are stock Honda units but still in good shape, I 
thought I was going to take the usual beating you normally get when riding a 250 but was 
surprised to find out the Challenger actually rides smoother than my Pilot on the small bumps
and ruts like seen in the picture below, I did bottom out the rear suspension a few times 
but it was not to harsh, the frame just dug into the sand, I still need to fabricate some sort 
of skid plate to protect the transmission.

The power that the 75 Yamaha 250MX cylinder puts out is good, it would climb any hill that 
I put in front of it with power to spare, it does not have the brute torque that my Pilot has but 
at the same time was not even close to running out of power, once I change out the current
series 500 driven clutch to a 790 the power and torque should be much better.



The Challenger was so much fun to drive I was going to drive it all day rather than just doing 
some testing until I hit a rock and took the air out of one rear tire, those Black label rims will 
be replaced with something stronger, I will beat the dents out and save them for dunes.




It didn't take long to fill that foam pre filter with dirt....