2006 BBR 119 Photo Gallery

When it comes to racing minis, there's no bigger name than BBR Motorsports, and there's no bigger venue than the MiniMoto SX. We thrash the bike that took home the glory. Check out how this bike held up in our 2006 Title Winning BBR 119 Test.

The MiniMoto SX in Las Vegas is the ultimate mini race in the U.S. The competition has been getting more and more serious each year and the 2006 event featured the most stacked lineup to date. This bike conquered all in the hands of Derek Costella.

BBR race bikes look good from any angle.

Studio shots cast the right light on Costella’s BBR 119. It’s no coincidence that it stood alone under the bright lights of Vegas as well.

This bike was built to finding the soft dirt that gets pushed high in corners. Deep loam may bog a lot of minis, but not this one.

Duane Brown was plenty comfortable demonstrating the launching power of his creation. Duane and Chris built 36 different bikes for the MiniMoto SX, but it was Costella who put his to the best use.

Crystal Scheid is a MiniMoto SX veteran too after finishing a respectable 13th place in the Women's class. She was all about the burly motor but had more difficulty with Costella's unorthodox suspension.

Owning a BBR bike without a billet gas cap just simply isn’t done.

The beefed-up BBR machine does well in the air but weighs only 34 pounds more than a stock CRF50. That's about the equivalent as a sack of dog food, which is exactly what your stock 50 will become when matched against Costella's meat-eating machine.

It’s a well-known fact that BC likes to wheelie. What more can we say?

High-side. He actually saved this one.

Jumping into the whoops can be hazardous to your health.

Brian puts big-bike form to use on the child-sized creation.

Exiting corners under hard acceleration requires a soft touch on the clutch to keep the bike from looping out.

Costella's suspension setup was different from most of the bikes prepared by the guys at BBR. He prefers to have the rear end squat and the front to ride high, lending to a chopper-like sensation. A lighter spring and the softest adjustable block on the Elka Supershock does the trick.

Though the suspension is set up very differently than most minis, Costella's bike retained its balanced feel. Blitzing the whoops wasn't bad on the softened rear end, but was actually a bit rough on the Marzocchi fork's stiff SX settings.

We were lucky enough to get a chance to test this mini mavel, but most people who have been around this thing on the track have gotten a view similar to this one.

Inside the ignition.

The Daytona motor has plenty of extra TLC smothered on it. A TokyoMods Stage 3 Ignition, Takegawa 3-speed manual tranny and hand-worked ports added big-time performance gains.

In this position, the TokyoMods Stage 3 Ignition is in full race mode, but flicking the switch backwards tunes the bike for maximum traction off the start.

Brian tries to summon the energy for a berm-busin’ money shot.

BC thought Costella’s bike was more easily maneuvered than the slightly heavier 160cc on hand for comparison.

One finger on the clutch is all that it takes to keep the BBR motor singing. And sing it does, reving to around 13,500 rpm according to the Brown Brothers.

The track’s whoop section received a few Barry Bonds-style performance enhancers since the last time we did serious testing out there. Nothing like some juiced-up whoop-de-doos first thing in the morning.

A Mid-Size Pro frame for the 50-based motor gives riders the confidence to hop into off-camber corners and land on the gas.

Drilled hubs give the race bikes a lighter unsprung weight. BBR doesn’t normally do this on their regular customers’ wheels, but they did tell us that there wasn’t anything on these bikes that they won’t sell to Joe Blow.

Gripping surface is much greater on the Mid-Size Pro Perimeter Frame’s twin aluminum spars. That comes in handy, for sure.

Squaring off a corner is easy when planting your foot takes as little effort as this.

Costella’s BBR 119 was obviously up to the challenging terrain offered by a Supercross track.

Tag T2 handlebars open up the controls department without giving that tall, narrow feel offered by many adult-sized mini bars.

These clickers hadn’t been touched since the Vegas victory so we’re sure that it could have been even better during our test if we had tuned them for our purpose.

Bowl turns are a blast and Costella made his blast through the pack by railing the outside lines.

Minis will be minis, and Costella’s bike can still get squirrelly. Brian did a masterful job of reeling it in during our testing, but he had a few moments throughout the day where the bike almost got away.

Monster Energy stepped up and sponsored the BBR effort this year, and they got a win out of it.

If you want to roost your buddies, this bike will definitely do the trick. This isn’t you backyard racer however, unless your goal is to never actually battle with you buddies because they won’t stand a chance.

The surefootedness of this bike makes for bar-dragging corner speed. Much lower and Brian would hyperextend his lanky knee.

The Brown Brothers couldn’t put an exact dollar figure on the extra green-anodized parts, but extras like this and the attention to detail are part of what make this bike special, and expensive.

Entering the rhythm section required little thought, and even less shifting. Just keep it pinned.

Lofting the front wheel is no problem for the Monster/BBR 119, despite the longer wheelbase. An excellent clutch, chassis and suspension all help deliver the power directly to the ground.

The SuperComp swingarm was three inches longer than a stock KLX110, adding a tremendous amount of stability to the bike.

Keeping the motor up in the revs was definitely the best way to make this bike haul. It could be left a gear lower in fast sweepers and worked well on our outdoor track.

Precise handling means that you can take the inside line after blowing the outer berm like Chamberlain does here.

The name is synonymous with mini performance. If you don’t recognize it by now then you’ve been buried deep in the hippie commune for way too long.

Dunlop 756 tires add to the big-bike feel. With this much power and handling performance, it takes serious treads to make it all useable.

Shredding berms this hard is usually reserved for big bikes, but the BBR 119 is not your average mini.

Though he raced the 10-inch class as well, Costella didn’t just toss a smaller set of wheels on his bike, but raced a totally different machine. Too bad we couldn’t get our hands on that one.

Trying to get this shot is what resulted in the whoop section crash. To his credit, BC soldiered on until out photographer was satisfied.

A little loop-out in the whoops never hurt anybody. Well, actually, it’s hurt a lot of people, but ours resulted in nothing more than a few scrapes on both man and machine.

Duane Brown raced a larger version of this bike, but that doesn’t mean he passed up the opportunity to rip around our Southern Oregon mini track. You can tell this guy rides minis for a living.