Factory Bike Friday: Ben Lamay’s Rock River Yamaha YZ450F

Team Rock River Yamaha’s Ben Lamay had injuries that kept him from racing the entire 2014 AMA Monster Energy Supercross Series. Lamay has since healed from those injuries so it’s back to work for mechanic and close friend Ryan Bailey. We caught up with the Colorado raised Bailey recently to see what the number 48 Yamaha is all about.

“Ben is surprisingly pretty mellow and he’s not too picky on his set up” Bailey stated. “He’s really only picky with his handlebar setting. If I move it a little he will notice and will adjust it. Most riders are similar with their handlebar set-ups”.

“We use JGR suspension and motors here at Rock River Yamaha. We work closely with the east coast based team. JGR will do all the motors at their shop in North Carolina and ship it back to us ready to go. We carry one spare motor with us to all the races just in case there are any malfunctions. Our motors are similar to the JGR team, except transmissions, we run stock transmissions. We usually swap out for fresh motors every third race. Johnny Oler from JGR does our suspension and he has a really good spec for Ben right now in Supercross. Since we started the series we haven’t changed valving on the SSS suspension, only clicker adjustments”.

FMF takes care of all of the muffler needs. We have a special muffler system that goes with our engine package. Braking oversize front rotors with Dubya USA Talon hubs and Excel A60’s. Vortex V3 oversize bars are mounted on the 22mm offset Xtrig triple clamps. Raptor pegs are used with a little extra sharpening by Bailey himself.

A GYTR full clutch kit is used, along with Renegade 4 plus race fuel. Another cool trick part is the adjustable subframe that the JGR team came up with for their race bikes. Ben runs the subframe at a 10mm lower setting for supercross. “If we wanted to go lower we could, there are massive amounts of adjustments with it.  We can adjust the rear of the bike on demand versus having to swap out subframes. There is so much adjustability now, which means we do not have to cut down subframes, plus it saves me a lot of time during the week”.