Dubach was so involved with the project that he says there are still some people who think he built the first YZ400 in his garage. Surprisingly, Dubach, who drove a pre-production model back in 1996, wasn’t a fan at first.
“When I heard about it, I wasn’t motivated. At first I wasn’t a big fan of it. When I thought about it, all I could think of was the guys trying to turn XR400s into race bikes,” recalls Dubach. “But when I first saw the bike it was good! We drove in Carlsbad which was kind of a cherry picking because it was the best place to do it as it was dry and slippery. The first time I saw it I thought, “Wow, this could be something!” It wasn’t quite where it should be to go into production, but we tested it and saw it again about every three months. About the third time I was like, ‘Wow, this is going to be the next bike that everyone is going to race.’”
Dubach’s prediction was absolutely correct. Longtime motocross fans will remember how Doug Henry rode the YZM400 in 1997 and shocked the world by winning Supercross in Las Vegas that same year. The production YZ400F later showed up at dealerships as a 1998 model, but development of the production bike was almost entirely separate from development of the YZM400, which has a history all its own. The production machine was developed by a team led by a brilliant Japanese engineer named Yoshiharu Nakayama. He later built the YZ250F at home in his spare time, but that too is another story.
Comments are closed.