Yamaha France flew just a handful of journalists to Laayoune, in Southern Morocco to test the 2-Trac on part of the course of the Shamrock Rally, where they already had two works 2-Trac machines competing in the week-long event.

Four of us had two days sharing two 2-trac machines and two conventionally driven WR450s, swapping between them at will. All four machines had the full complement of Ohlins equipment, so we were able to make a fair assessment of the pros and cons of two wheel drive in a whole variety of conditions, from huge soft dunes to salt lakes and ‘flat-out’ but stony desert with plenty of treacherous rocks hidden by the scrub and sand. We covered a full lap of the rally course on each of the two days, some 400kms in all, with extra excursions into the dunes for photographs and 1WD vs 2WD comparisons.

The first day’s terrain was a mixture of dunes and rocky going, but also included a 40km thrash down the beach, while the second day started and finished with 50kms of tarmac road and included some higher dunes, a rocky plateau and camel-inhabited scrubland.

In view of all the fast going, the test bikes were fitted with tall 15/47 front and rear sprockets instead of the standard 14/50 gearing.

In simple terms the two wheel drive system can be explained as follows:  The gearbox output sprocket drives a short, fully enclosed chain to a pump, which in turn pushes the oil (not hydraulic fluid) to the front hub via the pipe and back via the parallel pipe. There's no drive at all until the rear wheel starts to spin and only a maximum of 15% of the power goes to the front at any time.

We didn’t have to go far on our first outing to find the first challenge for the 2-trac WR450. Less than half a kilometre from the hotel, and only 200 metres from the tarmac road, we were confronted by a wall of sand, 10 metres high. That’s what it looked like to me anyway. There was no avoiding it – this was the start of Day Five of the Shamrock Rally and everyone, cars, bikes and quads was funnelled straight into this wall of sand by the tapes from the start line. (Not all at the same time, thankfully!) Talk about ‘in at the deep end’! The 2-trac didn’t let me down. It just motored up the near-vertical dune as if it was a grassy knoll. No problem.

On the other hand, it didn’t take long to establish that two wheel drive is no substitute for riding ability either. I struggled to keep up with our valiant leader Alexandre Kowalski from Yamaha France, who led us a merry dance across the dunes on a near-standard, one wheel drive WR450. He was like a two-wheeled ‘Pied Piper’, hopping and skipping across the treacherous obstacles while I confirmed my ‘non-expert’ status by taking two dives over the handlebars in the first five minutes.

The two wheel drive does inspire confidence though, especially in soft sand and it does make a real difference, as I discovered when I swapped back to the rear wheel drive bike. In the dunes, I needed more of a run-up to get up the same near-vertical climb and when I got stuck, the conventional bike required much more effort to extract it, while the 2-Trac actually pulls itself out by the front wheel. The front wheel drive assists you when you’re riding down a dune too, helping to stop the front wheel from ‘tucking in’.