Next week’s Rallye du Maroc will be the first World Rally-Raid Championship race for ZXMOTO. While company founder Zhang Xue is no stranger to rally raids as the previous creator of Kove Moto, the team isn’t going to set sky-high expectations for its maiden race.

Skyler Howes will represent ZXMOTO Joyride Factory Rally Team in RallyGP while Tobias Ebster does so in Rally2, both respectively migrating from Honda and Hero. Neither expect to be contending right out of the gate in Morocco since their goal is to develop the ZXMOTO 450 Rally, which Howes said has only been readily available for “about four to five months”.

The data collected from Morocco will then be applied to the 2027 Dakar Rally.

Zhang had run Kove’s rally program on a five-year plan that began with finishing Dakar in Year 1 (2023) with the eventual culmination of victory in Year 5 (2027). For ZXMOTO, which he unveiled last November, he’s taking a more patient approach on the rally side because the Supersport World Championship is his main priority. To this end, Zhang chose to partner with Joyride Rally Service for the factory team rather than a standalone effort like Kove.

With days until the race begins, Howes has been spending the last week in the desert with the bike. He has high praise for the chassis and KYB suspension, particularly calling the latter a “really good base to improve from”. On the other hand, the engine is a work in progress.

“The engine needs a lot of improvement,” he commented. “The team already is working on it but for Morocco we will be down on power. It has really great potential and the team is super motivated.”

If Morocco and Dakar go well, Howes noted production of the 450 Rally will begin in Dakar spec before being imported to the United States. He figures it’ll arrive stateside “sometime in 2027”.

ZXMOTO is one of five RallyGP manufacturers represented in Morocco alongside Hero, Honda, KTM, and Sherco.

Featured image credit: via Skyler Howes