Factory Bikes Take On the Toughest Off-Road Race — TAIMU MOTO’s Shi Jian: No Modification Shortcuts, Real Strength Proven on the Track

【Track Breakthrough | Spotlight on the 2026 Chongqing Motorcycle Super Series · Dazu Round】

Roaring engines tore through the autumn sky as dirt flew up with the wheels. The 2026 China Chongqing Motorcycle Sports Super Series “Jiesute · Lingyun Cup” Off-Road Motorcycle Track Race (Dazu Round) came to a successful close at the Dazu High-Tech Zone Off-Road Racing Circuit. As a key municipal-level auto and motorcycle brand event built by Chongqing, this round brought together more than 70 elite riders from across the country, with top teams and their modified race bikes going head-to-head on a highly technical off-road track packed with steep slopes, jumps and sharp turns. Among the heavily modified machines, the TAIMU MOTO craftsmanship team insisted on racing factory bikes, refusing the industry shortcut of modification-driven speed, and ultimately took one gold, one silver and one bronze — a weighty result on the track and the most talked-about highlight team of this Dazu Round.

In China’s off-road motorcycle scene, “modify to win” has long been standard practice for many teams. To chase faster lap times, many competing teams heavily reinforce and rework engines, suspension and drivetrains, squeezing out the limits of performance with aftermarket parts — leaving a huge gap between race results and the real-world performance of production models. Shi Jian, head of TAIMU MOTO, has a clear-eyed view of this. He insists on refusing excessive modification and puts forward the philosophy of “training through racing, advancing technology through racing, and taking production bikes straight into the harshest track tests,” treating professional racing as an open-air laboratory for the company’s production motorcycles. Every bump and every jump on the track is the most authentic test of the quality of the bikes sold to the market. “The track shouldn’t just be a showground for modified race bikes. Whether a production bike can withstand high-intensity off-road riding should be proven on the track. If a factory bike can’t pass the track test, there’s no way it can be called reliable and durable in the hands of consumers,” Shi Jian said. For TAIMU MOTO, competing is not just about trophies on the podium, but about identifying the weaknesses of production products in extreme competition, feeding that back into factory production and R&D, and turning track experience into the product quality that ordinary riders can buy.

Very different from most professional teams, the TAIMU MOTO craftsmanship team has a unique makeup. Only Yang Songyi is a professional seeded rider; the vast majority of the other team members are frontline workers from TAIMU MOTO’s production line. By day, they are industrial workers toiling in the production workshop, their hands constantly on wrenches and screwdrivers, completing motorcycle assembly and adjustment on the assembly line, personally turning parts into complete machines. At the track, they put on racing suits and helmets and become speed riders charging down the course. They know the specs of every screw and understand every structural design detail of the frame, suspension and engine — because these machines are the very products they assemble by hand, hammer and wrench. There is no lavish support crew; vehicle tuning and repairs are mostly done by the riders themselves. Drawing on technical skills built up in the workshop, the team members complete pre-race checks and condition tuning of the factory bikes on their own, making no changes to core powertrain hardware and only doing basic adjustments within compliant limits before heading out onto the challenging off-road track.

The Dazu High-Tech Zone Off-Road Racing Circuit is demanding: continuous rolling dirt slopes, big-angle jumps and linked sharp turns stack up one after another, posing a huge test of overall vehicle reliability, frame rigidity, suspension durability and engine stability. If a bike lacks strength, high-speed jumps and landing impacts can easily cause failures and retirement. During the race, riders in each class took turns on track, mud flying everywhere, competition white-hot. Multiple TAIMU MOTO craftsmanship team riders took on the challenge on factory production bikes, calmly handling all kinds of complex track conditions.

Lead rider Yang Songyi hit peak form, riding steadily in the elite class packed with strong contenders, controlling his rhythm throughout, overcoming the interference of a bumpy track and maintaining consistent output all the way to take the elite class title and a precious gold medal for the team. Immediately afterward, Yang Songyi moved on to the new energy class. Facing several strong opponents in that class, he drew on his deep understanding of the bike, sensibly managing his energy and the bike’s power output, and secured the runner-up spot in the class with a steady performance.

Meanwhile, frontline technical rider Qin Daijie competed in the rookie class. The rookie class gathered a large group of young up-and-coming riders, with fierce on-track battles and frequent overtakes and position fights. Facing pressure from all sides, Qin Daijie stayed calm and composed, making full use of his familiarity with the bike’s performance, precisely choosing his line through every corner and properly handling jump landings, gritting his teeth through round after round of high-intensity racing to finally take third place in the rookie class. One gold, one silver, one bronze — all three medals came on factory bikes without deep modification. Standing on the podium, these riders from the production workshop — with the same hands that normally drive screws and assemble complete bikes — wrote a track miracle for domestic factory motorcycles. Throughout the race, the team’s bikes went through multiple rounds of high-intensity racing and jump landings with no major failures, fully confirming the reliability of the production models.

From an industry perspective, the standout performance of the TAIMU MOTO craftsmanship team at the Chongqing Motorcycle Super Series Dazu Round is a vivid microcosm of Chongqing Dazu’s auto and motorcycle industry development approach of “promoting research through racing and promoting production through racing.” As a demonstration base for Chongqing’s new energy motorcycle industry, the Dazu High-Tech Zone has already formed a complete industrial cluster of complete vehicles and components, with racing becoming an important bridge connecting manufacturing and motorsport. Many manufacturers organize and enter races with more focus on brand exposure, but TAIMU MOTO has taken another path: putting factory workers on the track and sending production bikes directly into high-intensity off-road competition, letting frontline assemblers personally experience the strengths and weaknesses of the bikes under extreme conditions. After the race, team members review the detailed issues exposed by the bikes on track, bring first-hand data collected at the track back to the production workshop, feed it back to R&D and assembly positions, optimize component selection, improve assembly processes and drive iterative upgrades of production products.

“Trophies are only a stage result. The real value lies in seeing through racing where the product can still be made better,” Shi Jian explained. Insisting on racing factory bikes means voluntarily giving up the performance boost from modified parts — effectively making the race harder for themselves — but that is precisely the original intention behind TAIMU MOTO’s participation. What consumers buy on the market is a motorcycle in factory condition, and the track replicates the high-intensity usage scenarios users may encounter, testing the true strength of production bikes in the most brutal racing environment. Team members are at once makers, testers and competitors, closing the loop of “production — testing — racing — iteration.”

Looking back at the entire Dazu Round, while other teams were busy modifying race bikes to chase placings, the TAIMU MOTO craftsmanship team — with factory bikes and worker riders — took one gold, one silver and one bronze on a track full of strong competitors, breaking established industry assumptions. These industrial workers, who took off their work uniforms and put on helmets, relied on craftsmanship engraved in their bones to achieve extraordinary results on the red-dirt track. On the track, every sprint through the straights and corners is not only about fighting for honors, but also a practice of self-examination and self-breakthrough for China’s motorcycle manufacturing industry.

The Dazu Round has come to a successful close, but TAIMU MOTO’s racing journey continues. In the future, the TAIMU MOTO craftsmanship team will continue to uphold the spirit of craftsmanship, carry on the approach of “refusing excessive modification and racing factory bikes,” keep participating in motorcycle events at all levels across the country, and continue practicing training through racing and advancing technology through racing. On one hand, it will draw on practical experience accumulated on the track to hone overall vehicle quality and continuously optimize production motorcycle products; on the other, it will keep competing on off-road tracks across the country, constantly setting new track results for domestic factory bikes, letting workshop manufacturing strength be truly verified on roaring racetracks and helping Chongqing’s local auto and motorcycle industry break through upward.