Ken Roczen | “Terrafirma 94” Raw

INSTAGRAM | @kenroczen94
INSTAGRAM | @redbullmotorsports

IMAGES & VIDEO | Red Bull

The quarantine content continues to hit come! Remember when Ken Roczen, Team Honda HRC, and Red Bull rebuilt one of Jeremy McGrath’s old Honda CR250R bikes and let Roczen rip it around Castillo Ranch in homage to MC’s part in Terrafirma 2? A shot-for-shot redo matched to the original Face To Face song, “Terrafirma 94” has racked up nearly a million video views on YouTube since it was uploaded in 2017, and Red Bull has decided there’s no better time than now to release a raw riding video from the shoot.

The new video is a treat because it puts even more emphasis on the way Roczen rode the decades-old two-stroke around a modern Supercross track, plus some free riding clips and insight.

“Aside from lever adjustments and the little things like that, everything felt pretty comfortable. The bike was a bit on the richer side at first giving it a bit of delay on initial throttle, so that took a bit of getting used to,” Ken explained of the bike to Red Bull during the ride day. “Suspension wise it was interesting, it feels super plush, the rear is a bit dead and it’s way softer than what we ride with these days. It was quite different, but after about 15 minutes on it, I took a break and went back out and felt like I had ridden the bike for quite some time. Like I said, power wise everything has a delay, which made it scary when it comes to jumping and being precise, but the more I ride it the more I get used to it.”

Seeing the clips made me decide to fire up The Wayback Machine and hunt for content that was lost during the disassembly of TWMX, including an interview with mechanic Lars Lindstrom on the details of the steel frame CR250R. Press play on the full collection of videos released by Red Bull, browse the photos taken by Garth Milan, and maybe even give the original Terrafirma flicks another watch…

While Roczen’s riding was certainly incredible, the key detail of the entire production was a perfectly tuned Honda CR250R two-stroke that was built by Team Honda HRC technician Lars Lindstrom. The bike was actually a practice bike from McGrath’s tenure with the team and Lindstrom was tasked with the full refurbishment, which included a hunt for parts in Honda’s stockroom and through other vendors.

BUILD TIME: “I had quite a bit of notice because Red Bull planned to do the video a few months earlier, but it just didn’t work out with the timing of when Kenny was still in Santa Barbara. Luckily I had plenty of time to work on it because finding some of the parts and making it correct was difficult, plus we were so busy with our new 2017 CRF450R, so I had to do it in my extra time.

“The bike was one of Jeremy’s old practice bikes that he had at his house, so it had limited works parts on it, just the stuff they had on their practice bikes back in the day. When we got it, I went through it as much as I could and took the engine apart, sent the suspension to Showa so they could rebuild it, and made it completely safe for Kenny to ride. It’s as period correct as possible.”

SCAVENGER HUNT: “It was really hard to find a piston for that year. You can’t easily find that particular year’s piston anymore, and I could have run another year because the engine was so similar up until 2001, but I didn’t want to take the chance. I ended up finding the right piston for it. There were some other things, like the pipe that I found and made work, and the silencer. It was the right silencer, but for a different year. Making those things fit took a little bit and it was a team effort.

“Some of the parts were in the Honda warehouse, but there were barely any for that model year. I was on the Internet searching for parts and things, and there is a warehouse that bought a lot of old Honda stock, so they had some stuff. For some things, I went on a scavenger hunt at Honda and since I’ve been there for a long time, I knew where some gems were tucked away.”

TECHNOLOGY: “I called over Oscar (Wirdeman, Roczen’s mechanic) and Rich (Simmons, Seely’s mechanic) and told them to try and find the wiring harness on the bike. There’s barely anything there. Now it’s almost like a car, and with things like the electric start and fuel injection, we have wires and cables going everywhere to make the thing run as well as it does. With the old bike and the carburetor and the ignition system that it had, it was so simple and easy to work on. It was so basic and fun to work on.

WORKS PARTS: “I think the pipe and silencer are the best parts on that bike. It was a stamped works pipe that Honda raced with and then we modified it at Honda so only half of it was a cone pipe. They did that for a while because it had better characteristics at the time. That thing was really trick and like brand-new, and since it had been sitting for so long it was rad that we finally were able to use it. The muffler that Honda had back in the day, it was Kevlar and carbon fiber with an aluminum stinger tip. It is so trick and unbelievably light. Pro Circuit had a really nice silencer back then, but the Honda silencer was the epitome of factory. It was so trick.

“There were a few current things that fit, but not too many. It was things like the front brake pads, some bolts that we had organized as old stock, and the clutch is the same as a 2016 CRF450R. There weren’t as many things that fit as I thought would be, though.

“The graphics were brand-new and made by Throttle Jockey. They made them just like they were back in the day as a screen-printed graphic with the really awesome orange-red. They even added the original 100% logo to make it look exactly correct compared to the bike from 1996. It’s funny because Throttle Jockey made the graphics for Honda in 1995, then switched to 100% in 1996, and then went back to Throttle Jockey again and have been with them ever since. That was really cool.”