Over the past few months, the staff at DIRTsports has been engaged in the creation of our very hip Yamaha Rhino. The last few issues have featured our installation of: a very
custom, long-travel suspension kit, courtesy of DragonFire Racing and Fox Racing Shox, along with some engine/power mods and
a new custom DragonFire Racing cage assembly. Things were looking pretty good.
With the massive Pomona Off-Road Expo just around the corner (followed immediately by the kick-off of the sand season), we
knew it was time to take the DIRTsports Rhino to the project's finish line. For advice, parts and support, we turned to two aggressive new Rhino aftermarket companies–Black
Rhino and Rhino World–for help.
As soon as the new blue, silver and orange DIRTsports Rhino pulled into its stop at Rick Wallace's (aka "Wally World" to the off-road community) Rhino World booth, both the industry
supporters and fans of these fun side-by-side machines swarmed our little rig. It seems our carefully thought-out combination
of components, technology and modified Yamaha parts struck just the right cord with lots of people. Judge for yourself by
the attached images, but we think we pretty much hit a home run.
However, we can't take all the credit–in fact, very little. This jewel of a Rhino is the showcase of several talented minds
and hard workers. In the case of Black Rhino Performance and its amiable founder Brian Hart, the company installed a detailed
list of aftermarket products and performance packages that seemed in direct contrast to much of the over-the-top, flashy "bling"
being used in the sand market. One of the first to successfully market into the Rhino universe, Black Rhino has a well-earned
reputation for upscale, high-quality parts that are well tested and easy for the home mechanic to install.
Keep in mind, finding the time and place for conducting installations like these isn't easy. Contrary to popular opinion,
DIRTsports doesn't have a fully equipped shop/palace at our disposal to build projects. Lucky for us, Hart has just hired Tim Boen,
a Yamaha-trained technician, to open up a newly created installation and service facility on the Black Rhino premises. From
what we saw, Boen is one of the best talents we've come across–his attention to detail and mind for trick wiring is exceptional.
Beautiful, quality work, no matter where it lives in the Off-Road Nation, is always appreciated.
And beautiful work has been Rick "Wally World" Wallace's trademark since the 1970s when he first gave street VWs old school,
California-look paint jobs. Now, one of the most celebrated artists in both the SCORE and Best In The Desert racing scenes,
Wally lays his talents out for such famous Trophy-Truck teams as Pflueger Racing, Jimco Racing, Vildosola Racing and a hand-selected
group of others. To have a Wally World paint job, for those of you who don't know, is akin to having Chip Foose design your
hot rod.
Parts List:
We were fortunate to have Wally not only agree to lay out a killer DIRTsports paint job, but also use the car as a showcase for his newly designed Rhino World line of products. Bolstered on either end
by a recently introduced pre-run style line of front and rear bumpers, along with a new aluminum roof panel system, Wally
blended paint, powdercoating and nicely bent metal into the perfectly balanced Rhino you see before you.
If you're at an off-road racing event in 2006, be sure to stop by our trailer and take a good look at our newly completed
Yamaha Rhino. We'll test it in the desert soon, along with making updates and just having a great time, which is what the
Rhino craze is all about.
A lifelong enthusiast of off-road motorsports, Marty Fiolka raced his first SCORE Baja 1000 in 1992. A graduate of the California University at Long Beach, he formed the Rennsport Marketing Group in 1995 and executed public relations programs for Nissan, Infiniti, Exxon, Mitsubishi, and SCORE International. Now an eight-time Baja 1000 competitor and desert racing veteran, Fiolka is the associate producer of Dana Brown's Baja documentary, Dust to Glory, the author of the recently released coffee-table Baja 1000 history book 1000 Miles to Glory and the editorial director for Advanstar Communications.
Articles by Marty Fiolka
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