Jesse Ziegler | March 28, 2025
It’s not often you have the chance to ride the fastest bike in off-road racing; it’s even rarer to actually race it. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to do both on the same day when I rode Zane Roberts’ factory-backed 2025 Beta 480 RR Race at the Jackrabbits MC Hare & Hound, which was the second round of the 2025 National Hare & Hound Association (NHHA) series in Moapa, Nevada.
Roberts and his Beta 480 RR Race are fast. They secured the 2024 NHHA title and remain undefeated after two rounds in 2025, making their victories seem, well, somewhat easy. Zane has been nailing his starts, riding fast in clean air, and keeping his Beta at the front and on track. These are the essential ingredients for winning desert races. It’s not overly complicated, but it’s super scary and challenging for us regular folks to do.
National Hare & Hound racing at the highest level is frightening. Nothing matches the speed or unpredictability of desert racing. Often, it’s about barreling into the abyss while making split-second decisions on whether to keep the throttle wide open into the obscurity of unfamiliar terrain and blinding dust or to chop the throttle like a reasonable person. It’s not a comfortable environment; it’s gnarly. Nothing is as fast or scary as desert racing. I’ve tried just about every form of off-road racing there is, and nothing terrifies me more than hare and hounds. But I love them.
The bike I rode in the Jackrabbits race was Zane’s practice/race bike, which is a mirror image of his current and primary race bike. It’s also very similar to his 2024 championship-winning machine because the production 480 RR Race models did not change much from 2024 to 2025, namely updated crankcases.
The Bomb
My race started out in the dust after I botched the start, and it stayed that way for the next three hours and 15 minutes as I gingerly tried to reach the bike’s potential. In comparison, Zane finished in under two hours for the win. There were moments when the bike and I were going fast, for sure. But for the most part, it was the easiest race this bike will ever have. It must’ve been bored going my speed.
However, I’ll tell you—this bike is fast, real fast, but is so easy to ride thanks to dump-truck loads of torque on demand. Behind its strength is a calm demeanor. It doesn’t light up and blitz or spin away; instead, it grips and rips. This is where the speed comes from. Zane’s Beta does this even more than the stocker. How? Well, one of the only things on this bike you can’t buy from your Beta dealer is the engine management electronics and wiring system. The custom race-team-only ECU and electrical signal bits in Zane’s bike allow the race team to engineer deeper levels of tunability into the power output and optimize things like fuel efficiency, torque curves and even rev-limiter engagement. Zane has his bike set up extremely friendly. Its bottomless pit of torque keeps pulling right to the rev-limiter. In fact, he says he has the limiter engage lower than stock so that when he feels it come on, he knows he’s right at peak torque for the gear he’s in. It’s not warning him he’s over-revving the bike in the danger zone. It’s telling him he’s right where he needs to be.
The entire engine/performance package is simply rad. I can’t imagine a better bike for me to just “show up” and race a desert race on.
Zane Roberts was born in 1999. Even though he’s “freakishly” tall at 6’4-ish and sort of an old soul when it comes to his personality/professionalism, he is very young, which, when combined with his high level of talent, equates to speed, I suppose. I graduated high school in 1995. And I’m a “completely normal” height for an American male at precisely 5’10.” I haven’t gotten any better at riding/racing in a long time, and the weirdest thing about me is that I keep doing this stuff. So, how can a guy like me jump on Zane’s race bike and feel comfortable? Easily. I certainly wouldn’t run the Seat Concepts double-decker seat height, but I didn’t hate the cushion it provided. Mika Metals provides Zane with the tallest handlebar they make, and Xtrig triple clamps and bar mounts make Zane’s bike comfortable for him. For me, saying it’s a bit stretched out is an understatement. But I just raced it as-is to see how it would work, and I was honestly fine all day. It would be way worse if it were a cramped cockpit.
Since Zane and I are about the same weight (somehow), I figured the suspension specs should be close as far as the range of travel and things like rider sag settings. I was right. We adjusted the shock sag setting a bit before I took off, and that was it. I left everything else just as Zane would run it. This, too, was completely fine. I was surprised at how comfortable his bike was. Pro-level fast-guy suspension can be aggressive, for sure. Not this stuff. It was easy to ride as a normal dude, but it had the magic factory tunability to always have some reserve valving for those big hits. In desert racing, this is important because you simply cannot see what’s coming sometimes. And it’s what you don’t see that gets you. So, having suspension that can save you from the big stuff is nice. Mr. Roberts told me since my race experience, he’s stiffened his suspension up a bit. Apparently, if someone my speed was comfortable, he (correctly) thinks he can run a stiffer setting.
All the Beta Factory Team racers have their suspension tuned in-house at the Beta USA headquarters as part of the Beta Factory Suspension program. However, you too can send your suspension to Beta, and they will install the exact same parts, valving and setting combinations for you. Moreover, you can order a brand-new bike with all this suspension work already completed! It will be delivered to your dealer custom-revalved and ready to rip. That’s cool.
The suspension and engine niceties wouldn’t mean squat if the base platform was whack. And we’ve reported numerous times in the pages of Cycle News our fondness for the latest generations of Beta’s off-road weapons. They are truly race machines, and the additional parts and pieces the factory team uses simply enhance the base goodness.
This year, Beta is one of the few efforts in off-road running Bridgestone tires. While they’re testing durability to the max in two hours of off-road racing, the performance of Bridgestone off-road tires has always been great for me. It’s nice to see another brand in the mix, and it will be interesting to see if they come out with desert-racing-specific offerings in the future. The rest of the factory bike build uses proven and reliable parts from brands I respect. There isn’t one single weird thing on this bike. Standouts include the FMF full exhaust system, Bullet Proof Designs rear disc guard and radiator guards, Seat Concepts seat, TM Designsworks chain slider and block, Twin Air air filter and the Rekluse heavy-duty clutch cover—all things I wouldn’t hesitate to buy for my bike.
I can confidently say Zane Roberts’ Beta 480 RR is the perfect desert racing machine. It spans the wide gap of talent and speed from someone like me to a National Champion with comfort and useable high performance. It also represents the market so racers like you can easily enter and compete. All these parts, except for the ECU system, are likely available at your local Beta dealer. So, go build a race bike and enter a race. It might be scary, but it’s worth it every time.CN
VIDEO | Race Testing a Factory Beta 480 RR Race
Zane’s Touch
Liqui Moly Beta Racing Factory Team 2025 Beta 480 RR Race
| Lubrication | Liqui Moly |
| Tires | Bridgestone(X31 rear/M59 front) |
| Inner Tube | Nuetech NitroMousse (Platinum 305) |
| Wheel Sets | Kite |
| Rim Locks | Motion Pro |
| Exhaust System | FMF Racing (Mega Bomb header/Ti Factory 4.1 muffler) |
| Coolant | Evans |
| Radiator Hose | Samco |
| Air Filter | Twin Air |
| Clutch Cover | Rekluse |
| Drive Chain | Regina (Gold ZSE Z-ring) |
| Graphics | HBD MotoGrafx |
| Frame Guards | Acerbis |
| Front Brake Guard | Acerbis |
| Handguards | Acerbis |
| Swingarm Guard | Bullet Proof Designs |
| Radiator Guards | Bullet Proof Designs |
| Handlebars | Mika Metals (RC Pro Bend) |
| Handlebar Levers | ARC |
| Throttle Tube | G2 Ergonomics |
| Grip Donuts | G2 Ergonomics |
| Triple Clamps | Xtrig ROCS |
| Bar Mounts | Xtrig PHDS |
| Parabolic Steering Damper | Precision Racing Product |
| Footpegs | Fastway Pro Moto Billet |
| Seat | Seat Concepts |
| Chain Block/Slide | TM Designworks (Factory Edition FX) |
| Fuel Tank (dry-break style) | IMS |
| Holeshot Device | Works Connection |
| Hour Meter | Works Connection |
| Powder Coating | Maas Brothers |
