EXCLUSIVE: We Race Krämer’s New APX-350 MA

There are lots of problems with roadracing in America. Especially when it comes to grooming America’s next World Champion. One of them is the machinery itself. At the professional level – MotoAmerica in this case – the most junior of classes is appropriately named the Junior Cup. While having a place for teens to race at a professional level is great, the Junior Cup does little to prepare them for a possible progression to MotoGP someday. Why? Because the Kawasaki Ninja 400s that have come to dominate the class are nothing like the purpose-built Moto 5 racers kids in Spain and Italy are learning on. Those bikes are sharp, precise, light, and focused. The Ninja 400 is a wet noodle by comparison. And a heavy one at that. 

Things get even more complicated when you consider Kawasaki has replaced the Ninja 400 with the Ninja 500. So technically, the series is already running on outdated machinery. That’s not a good look. Not for Kawasaki or MotoAmerica.

Enter Krämer Motorcycles

The maker of purpose-built racing motorcycles, Krämer’s latest model, the APX-350 MA, has the ingredients to solve both of MotoAmerica’s problems. The APX-350 is all-new and designed solely to be ridden on a racetrack. Like all Krämers, this one has a chassis designed specifically for roadracing – no wet noodles here – and sitting in the center of it is not the 390cc Single from the 390 Duke, but the 350cc Single plucked from the KTM 350 EXC-F enduro model. With 55 horses, a 242-lb wet weight, top-shelf WP suspension, a Mectronik MKE7 ECU, and the ability to adjust just about everything from geometry, suspension, riding position, to electronics, it’s the full package that could propel America’s next World Champion to the big leagues. 

Or at least that’s what Wayne Rainey thinks, which is why MotoAmerica have entered into an agreement with Krämer to phase out the existing Junior Cup and replace it with the Talent Cup in 2025, with the APX-350 MA being the sole model for the series, canceling out the need for MotoAmerica to react and balance the series when a new production bike is introduced.

If you’ve followed my personal history with Krämer Motorcycles, you’ll know that I’ve ridden a variety of them over the years. I’ve won races with the EVO2, tested the GP2 Prototype with the 790 engine, which then became the GP2-890R, GP2-890RR, and KTM RC8R – all of which I’ve either tested and/or raced. As a former owner of an EVO2, and now the current owner of a GP2-890R, Krämers appeal to me because these bikes are the closest I’ll get to riding something on the GP grid.

That statement rings true now more than ever, because I’m also lucky enough to call myself the first person outside of Kramer to give the APX-350 MA Prototype a spin. Much like I did with the GP2 790 prototype, I again got the nod to attend the 2024 AHRMA Vintage Motorcycle Festival at Barber Motorsports Park. But unlike the Krämer test riders, I wouldn’t just be turning laps in isolation – I was going racing!

But First, A Warning

In a way, my riding impressions are almost meaningless. I know that’s usually true in most cases, but that’s especially true now. I can’t stress enough that this is a prototype, and an early one at that. Krämer follows the same nomenclature as KTM, and in this case the APX-350 MA prototype I’m riding is a P-1. The P-3 stage is when you start to get a motorcycle resembling the finished product.

Joe Karvonen, or “Krämer Joe” as he’s more affectionately known, is the US distributor for Krämer and the owner of Krämer Motorcycles USA. He’s also the man who proposed making a little Krämer in the first place, so in many ways this is his baby. He warned me when I arrived in Alabama about the prototype status of this bike and how nearly everything could, and likely will, change before the Talent Cup kids start riding them in 2025. He also told me that the bike I was riding was the only one of its kind, followed by, “I know you’re going racing, but please don’t crash it.”

No pressure…

The Bike

Let’s start with the bike itself – or at least the one I’d be riding. As mentioned before, this is an all-new chromoly steel trellis frame specifically designed for the APX series (more on that in a moment) and not borrowed from another Krämer model – and definitely not borrowed from another KTM. Being a racebike, adjustability is available in spades. From the chassis side, the APX follows the same cues as its EVO and GP2 siblings and offers the rider the ability to change the headstock angle, triple clamp offset, swingarm angle, ride height, seat height, rearset height, and handlebar angle.

Sitting in the center of it is the 350 Single, which Krämer says will put out 55 horses at 10,700 rpm and 27 lb-ft of torque at 8,100 rpm. Unlike the 350 found in the EXC-F, however, this one is converted to ride-by-wire and breathes through a bigger 50mm throttle body – the same one found in the EVO2 690 engine. The bigger throttle body does give the bike a little more power, but the changeover to R-b-W was to allow a full electronics suite, including traction control. And in case you’re wondering, yes, the bike absolutely can spin up the back tire. Especially one that’s worn by the end of a race. But the more curious among you are probably wondering why Krämer chose the 350 engine instead of the 450.

“The 450 vibrates like crazy,” Krämer Joe told me, eyes booming wide. You see, Joe is one of the most stoic guys I know. Emotions don’t get him to react up or down, usually. So when he responded like that, I believed him. He continued, “counterbalancing just adds weight, and it doesn’t really matter on dirt bikes because they don’t hold sustained revs like a roadrace bike.” The 350 still buzzes, but apparently it’s not as bad. From a performance standpoint, Joe also says the 350 head actually flows more air at high rpm, which is where this engine will live, so the 350 has a higher performance ceiling. Not that it matters much since the bikes will be the same for all Talent Cup competitors.

Obviously, reliability is key for any engine, especially in race trim, and this is another reason why the enduro engine was picked over the MX’er. It has a slightly lower compression ratio, which is a big boon for reliability.

On that subject, you might recall Krämer is far from the first company to go roadracing with a dirtbike engine. Several have tried, each with varying degrees of success, but while the bikes gave grand prix-like handling, sustained high revs meant the engines never lasted very long. Krämer Joe thinks this time is different. “Metallurgy has come a long way,” he says. “With the materials we have now, and the fact we picked the EXC-F engine and not the SX, I’m not worried about them [the engines].” 

In addition to allowing for traction control, ride-by-wire was critical to pair up with the Mectronik ECU (the same one used in World Supersport) to allow for engine brake control, different throttle maps, and the ability to control the ignition for the up/down quickshifter. Critically, all the Talent Cup bikes will be shipped with a fuel map in the Mectronik ECU for VP MGP-R fuel, which is the spec gas for the series.

From the rider’s perspective, you’re looking at a TFT display from ECUMASTER that displays the important information like engine rpm, TC setting, etc., but it also has a GPS-enabled lap timer. Behind the scenes it’s also collecting data about your riding session to analyze after. It’s also pre-wired for suspension potentiometers – which this prototype had – to dive into extreme detail of the bike’s behavior. 

Speaking of suspension, WP units adorn both ends. No surprise there considering Krämer’s ties to KTM. Full adjustability is a no-brainer for the fork and shock, though the bike I was riding had not yet received final spec in terms of valving at either end.

To me, the more interesting piece on this prototype was the swingarm. Borrowed from the EVO2 690, its outward appearance looks virtually the same. However, when viewed from the top there’s a clear difference. This APX test mule had huge reliefs cut out on each side of the swingarm – the handiwork of Krämer R&D Chief Felix Richter – to provide more chassis flex and get more feel out of the spec Dunlop slicks all the bikes will run. The finished bike’s swingarm will look more polished, but as I would discover, trying things and modifying on the fly is the point of a test mule prototype.

A single 320mm Motomaster fully floating rotor is paired with a Brembo Stylema caliper. The prototype ran a production Brembo master cylinder, which may or may not be replaced by a higher-spec Brembo master later on. Still, it feeds fluid through a steel line. What’s interesting is the APX does share one thing with its KTM cousin – its RC390 wheels. These cast wheels help bring costs down a little compared to forged (or carbon fiber) wheels and are plenty durable for the job, plus they already have tone rings for wheel speed sensors.

As far as outward appearances go, the bodywork is clearly different from the EVO2 and GP2, with the nose more rounded, and closed off, in its forward edges. The opening at the front is a ram-air port, meaning the 350 engine will actually make a little more power at speed.

Speaking of bodywork, what you see in these pictures are 3D-printed versions of the final fiberglass pieces. They’re about 20 lbs heavier than they should be, which puts this bike at around 262 lbs. Krämer thinks it can get the weight even lower than the 242 mark it’s claiming – and (reliably) raise the power number too – but for now the stated figures are a safe goal to start with.  

What does it all cost? Nobody goes into racing thinking it’s going to be cheap, and a price of $22,495 will bring sticker shock to a lot of people – as Krämer prices generally do. But have you seen the cost of an actual grand prix bike? They make an APX-350 seem like a, well, Ninja 400 in comparison. And if we’re going to make the apples-to-oranges comparison with the existing Junior Cup bikes, then factor in the cost of a new Ninja 400, then the amount of money it takes to build a bike that can run at the front of the class, and you won’t be far off the price of a APX-350 – and you certainly won’t have a bike more capable.

Nonetheless, Krämer’s not blind to the fact that there are plenty of potential customers who won’t go racing with this bike and/or want something at a lower price point. They’ll have to wait a little longer, but a lower-spec version with less fancy suspension and less electronics (among other things) will eventually be available with a price tag somewhere in the teens. 

In fact, referring to the bike as part of the APX “series” strongly hints at Krämer pulling other engines from KTM’s off-road lineup – including two-strokes – for future models within the APX family. We’re clearly jumping ahead here, but the possibilities are definitely exciting.

Racing The APX-350 MA

Entering the four days comprising the 2024 AHRMA Vintage Festival, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. The bike had only completed limited testing back in Germany and parade laps around COTA. Those rides were done in isolation. Now we were jumping into the deep end and going racing! To be clear – this is not the usual order of operations for a new motorcycle.

Usually all this testing is done behind closed doors with a private test team before people like myself, and especially the general public, get their hands on it. All the kinks need to be worked out, optimal settings discovered, and any random anomalies sorted. And that’s just for a street ride! The stakes are even higher on the track.

As a P-1 prototype, no single component on the bike is promised to make it to production. In fact, they most likely won’t. Hell, even the fuel “tank” you see in these photos isn’t real. The production version was still being molded in East Europe somewhere. I was sitting on a hollowed-out EVO2 seat/tank with a custom fuel cell carefully stuffed inside that Krämer Joe (beautifully) welded together in an AirBnB garage overnight in Austin with a welder he bought on Facebook Marketplace earlier that day!  

I paint this picture to give you an idea of the “rough around the edges” state we were dealing with. It’s also why R&D head Felix Richter came all the way from Germany to assist. I was essentially his guinea pig, gathering data on the bike so he could tune, adjust, and take notes to take back to HQ. He had a laundry list of settings and parts to test, and my job was to ride as quickly as I could while taking mental notes to compare against the data. This is why, over the roughly 100-plus laps I did over the event, no two times did I go out on exactly the same motorcycle. Something was changed every time. Usually small changes, but sometimes big ones, too. Ostensibly, I was there to race. In reality, I was conducting an extreme test session. But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t going to try. And did I mention crashing was not an option?

With the amount of nerves going through my body, I took the early laps very cautiously. Still, it only took a few corners on the very first lap to understand a few things: First, the fears that the prototype state of the bike meant it was somehow unsafe were totally wrong. There was nothing sketchy about it. Second: this bike vibrates like crazy (and the 450 is supposed to be worse!). And third, the APX is incredibly light. To help with the vibrations, Krämer Joe added some heavy bar end weights to make the buzz bearable. It helped significantly, but then I’d notice the vibes through the pegs and onto my feet, which is a first for me. I’m told Krämer has more tricks up their collective sleeves to make the buzz more palatable.

The buzz is forgiven by virtue of the bike’s lightness. Never have I put such little effort into turning a motorcycle and have it respond with the kind of quickness the APX gave back. Now, lightness is a trait of all Krämers, but the APX takes it to another level. It’s crazy to think this prototype is 20 lbs heavier than it should be!

With the APX, the lightness is paired with a chassis built to go around a racetrack, meaning it’s agile and precise. A production bike like the Ninja 400 takes you in a general area, the APX moves with pinpoint accuracy – just like a Grand Prix racer. This is the kind of experience the kids riding this bike need to get used to as they move up the ladder.

My trouble was dealing with constant front-end chatter. The spec Dunlop tires lacked edge grip and were hard to get a feel for at the limit. When combined with the lack of chassis flex from the front end, I’d end up with terrible front end chatter on corner entry in several places. I’d have to wait for the chatter to settle before I could finish and drive out of a corner. Waiting means leaving time on the table, which is clearly frustrating, but I simply couldn’t trust the front to push harder. To complicate things a little more, the initial throttle response from zero- to one-percent throttle was abrupt, making it even harder to be smooth.

Felix took care of that in minutes with some strokes of his keyboard, inputting a new throttle map to leave the throttle butterfly partially open on decel, resulting in a smoother transition when getting back on the gas. It worked like a charm and we turned our focus back on the chatter. Without any previous tire pressure data to work with, we went to each extreme Dunlop recommended to see if we could get the chatter under control, but after nearly bouncing the front end all the way to the gravel trap at the top end of the pressure range (38 psi), we quickly learned that our target tire pressure would be much lower. Despite continually dropping PSI and only feeling marginally better, I came back to the pits to tell Felix nothing was working.

Felix looked at the data and saw the same things, the fork potentiometer showing high frequency oscillations in the areas and conditions I was talking about. “Wait here,” he said as he dashed inside the trailer. Thoughts of guinea pigs went swirling through my head. When he came back out, he was holding a triple clamp. This one about 80% thinner than the standard one I started with. The machining marks were fresh and there wasn’t even an attempt at making it look presentable. This was a true skunkworks piece! If the tire wasn’t going to flex, we had to find flex somewhere else. In theory, the thinner triple would provide that flex and give me more confidence in the front. Since I was having a hard time getting a feel for the Dunlop’s edge grip already, any bit of confidence I could get was welcome. 

It helped. A lot. The chatter no longer felt like a jackhammer and I could push a little more. But it wasn’t completely gone and the new limiting factor was my lack of confidence at lean because I couldn’t feel the edge of the tire. This wasn’t just about the lack of edge grip, but as I later learned, I was riding on a slightly different Dunlop tire, one made in Japan, not the US-made rubber, with a flatter profile. This lack of profile physically limited how much I could lean the bike before there simply wouldn’t be any rubber on the ground. Also not good.

With only 55 horses at my disposal, there’s a huge reliance on corner speed and holding momentum, which is why so much focus was placed on the chassis. The APX is wide open early and often, and if you can’t get it there, the competition runs away. Felix turned the bike upside down, experimenting with different rake angles, fork offsets (between the standard 26mm and 28mm), and even different handlebar positions – all to make me comfortable, and in turn, fast.

Ultimately, the best setup we found was keeping the standard fork’s 26mm offset, moving the forks 10mm up through the triple, lowering the handlebar position slightly to get more weight over the front, and shortening the wheelbase by adding a rear sprocket with three additional teeth. The 350 can rev as high as 13,000 rpm, but Felix set the limiter to a more modest 11,000 rpm for safety. The bigger sprocket allowed me to carry more roll speed without having to shift mid-corner. I could now get into the meat of sixth gear. I still had trouble trusting the edge grip from the tires, but at least I could trust the chassis since the chatter was drastically reduced (but not gone).

Junior Cup Comparison

Naturally, as the replacement for MotoAmerica’s Junior Cup class, it only makes sense to compare the APX against the Ninja 400s it’s replacing. While I’ve never ridden a Ninja 400 fully prepped in Junior Cup trim, there’s still a fundamental trait it exhibits: a whole lot of chassis flex. It’s as though Kawasaki put a hinge in the middle of it. This is what you get with a production bike and the compromises a manufacturer has to make in order to produce something comfortable for the roads. Tip the Ninja into a corner and it’ll go in the direction you want it to, while the bike moves around and dances underneath you the entire time – hence the wet noodle reference earlier.

We entered the APX in five different races on Saturday and Sunday, pitting ourselves against a variety of machines ranging from 650cc Twins, 450cc supermotards, 125cc two-strokes, and even Moto3 bikes from a few years ago. All with the intent to not only gauge where the bike belongs inside of AHRMA’s current class structure, but also to use the races as extra practice sessions to try different setups. But the class I was most intrigued by was Sound Of Thunder 4. This, essentially, is a class for Junior Cup bikes with fewer restrictions on the modifications (open fuel and tire rules, for example) and no restrictions on rider age. This would be the class to directly compare the APX to the bikes it would replace.

Initially, during practice, things weren’t looking great. I languished in the 1:40 range because of the various issues I mentioned above. As Saturday rolled around, Felix had made the bulk of the changes to the bike and the times were getting better. The power delivery was smooth, the gearing was on point, I could put the bike on its nose on the brakes and still turn it, and its chassis was incredibly agile and confidence-inspiring in the corners. I kept blaming the lack of edge grip from the tires (and my strict commands not to crash) as the reason I was going slow. But ultimately, I just needed a carrot to chase.

I found my carrot in Drew Jankford. A former AHRMA class champion, he’s a fast rider on a nicely-built (though not MotoAmerica-spec) Ninja 400. I’d befriended Drew from our times racing together in the past, so I knew he’d be the perfect person to chase. Starting from the back of the grid, Drew and I made our way past much of the field by turn 4, though Drew was more ruthless and made more daring passes to make his way to the front. Not wanting to get bogged down and let him get away, I picked my way through the field as well until it was just him and I going at it. We exchanged positions a few times, as he would get the better of me early in the lap mid-corner as I was dealing with chatter, but the APX’s superior brakes and chassis allowed me to carry better roll speed later in the lap where I felt more confident, which I then could carry on corner exit and onto the straights where I’d draft past. 

This constant back-and-forth between two friends was not only fun, but it dragged me to my best time of the whole weekend – a 1:38.634. I know there was more speed to be had – probably enough to break past Logan’s time – but I simply couldn’t trust the tires enough to chase the extra speed that I knew was there. Nonetheless, that still tells me what I need to know: if this old, washed-up guy could lap at this pace, the younger, more talented, and less fearful riders are going to smash the current Junior Cup records at all the tracks the Talent Cup goes to.