Motomaniac,
Correct, EVO is not exactly year specific, but by default the class is. The GCR's tell us that an EVO machine is any bike that was manafactured with an aircooled engine, fitted with drum brakes and no linkage suspension. These bikes started in the 50's (at a guess without research) and stopped around 1980/81. There wern't to many manafactured post that date that would cause any significant issues (1 rare as Husqvarna model aside)
My simple belief is that EVO is non-linkage. ie; twin shocks or Yamaha Monoshock. Pre85 is linkage suspension. This would give support to the Year Vs Technology point you raised.
In relation to Pre80, i'm not sure where this fits into the topic as there is no such class, hasn't been for 2 or so years.
Bahnsy I mentioned pre 80 because 1. that was what we had before the Evo class was defined and included and 2. Because I was considering a cut off date for pre 85.
Back in 96 VIPER had no EVO class but included it as an extra class that ran along with pre 80 not instead of pre 80.The argument at the time was that there was some bikes eg. RM T's and CR A's YZ G's Mega Maico's and Huskies that had no place in the series - noone would expect an RMT OR CR A to match up with a for eg 84CR250/500.
Yet these bikes that were in nomans land needed to be included.And its great .
Whether you excluded EVO bikes from pre 85 competion or not is a hard one for me but I would ride both class's if I had 510 Husky.
I'll plead the 5th on this one as i was basing the comment on the 2008 season. Although i did have a look at the VIPER 09 results up to the Ravenswood round, and of the 23 entrants thus far, i think that 10 of the entrants would be on Pre85 machinery,
I think that its a fair observation that some pre 85 riders go out in pre 90 in the first round only for the extra practice.But Im not counting or splitting hairs here.In viper its a legit class and I enjoy seeing those bikes turn up to race.In fact Im thinking of giving the class a go myself.
Too bad that guys in some other states dont have the opportunity.