Electric motorcycle racing poised for blastoff with ever-improving production bikes from Zero and Brammo

The 2012 TTXGP season demonstrated one thing really well - that production electric motorcycles are now good enough for credible racing.  The electric car field doesn't have anything equivalent.  First, there isn't an electric car racing series with any history, well other than NEDRA electric drag racing.  Second, there isn't a production electric car on the market to which you can make a few simple modifications and have a credible racing vehicle, well, other than the Tesla Model S.  Among the 2013 production electric motorcycle's are not just one, but two, models, available from two manufacturers, that can be easily modified for electric motorcycle racing.

Jeremiah Johnson at
2012 TTXGP World Championship
Daytona

The watershed for this was the 2012 TTXGP season in North America which included the eSuperStock award group, made up of 2012 Zero S's provided by Zero Motorcycles.  They raced the full North American season, performing admirably and reliably.  At the 2012 TTXGP World Championship in Daytona, while Zero themselves did not show up there was a Zero S in the race.  That was one prepared by Terry Hershner and Jeremiah Johnson.

Theirs was a most interesting story in which Terry rode his bike from Tampa to Daytona, and then he and Jeremiah set about converting the bike to fit the TTXGP rules.  I shot the following video interview with them following the race.  The goal of the video was to talk through the simple modifications required to take a stock Zero S and run it in a TTXGP race.

Before the video I want to make something clear.  In my reports during the 2012 season I kept returning to a complaint about the slow bikes and fast bikes.  Because of practicalities, the TTXGP organizers grid slow bikes and fast bikes together creating a condition in which bikes like the 2012 Zero S are getting passed by bikes going 60-70 miles/hr faster.  Flat out the stock 2012 Zero S would do 90 miles/hr, and the modified bike shown in the following video was hitting speeds around 100 miles/hr.  These are decent speeds and a full race grid of 32 Zero S's would be very exciting.  However both the Brammo guys were hitting 170 miles/hr top speeds, making the Zero's look bad by comparison.

This is not to diminish the advances represented by the Zero S's.  It is amazing, in fact, that starting with the 2012 Zero S it was now possible to just buy an electric motorcycle, make a few simple modifications, and take it racing.  The 2012 Zero S was proved to perform slightly slower than 250cc gas bikes, but the improvements in the 2013 Zero S should make it slightly faster than 250cc gas bikes.  And then there is the Brammo Empulse R which is now being delivered to customers, and which is probably a bit faster than that.

What I would prefer is for these 100ish miles/hr production bikes to be in their own race grid, and for the top bikes to be in their own race grid. The video below demonstrates just how close we are to being able to field a grid of 32 production electric motorcycles in one race.  These sorts of modifications are expected to be made into a kit, produced by the manufacturer, so that electric motorcycle owners could quickly and easily get into racing.

The TTXGP World Championship at Daytona is shaping up to be a massive electric superbike battle

The Barracuda Lightning team won the e-Power/TTXGP race at Le Mans yesterday, validating that teams risky move to race at Le Mans rather than finish out the season with the TTXGP North American championship.

Rather than dissect why Lightning chose this path, let's look forward to what is shaping up to be a seriously exciting TTXGP World Championship race at the Daytona International Raceway.

First, that race will have Muench Racing, Barracuda Lightning, Team Icon Brammo, as a repeat of the lineup at the Laguna Seca e-Power/TTXGP race, and will include Zongshen, assuming they choose to come to America for a race.

At Laguna Seca, Barracuda Lightning's Michael Barnes barely beat Brammo's Steve Atlas to win that race.  However, he beat Muench's Himmelmann by 16+ seconds.

At Le Mans, Barracuda Lightning's Duhamel barely beat Muench's Himmelmann by just shy of 2 seconds.  We wonder how much effect on this result came from Duhamel's lack of experience with this bike, as well as the lack of testing and setup time for Lightning to set up the bike for Duhamel.

At the Miller Motorsports race, Steve Atlas was badly beaten by team-mate Eric Bostrom.

At Le Mans, the Zongshen racers all finished well down from the leading bikes.  However in most of their meetings Zongshen and Himmelman have been duking it out for the lead.

All this suggests there will be a massive battle between racers with the Brammo, Lightning, Muench and Zongshen teams.  It's just not clear enough to predict now who will win.  The margin of victory in each of these pairings has not been clear enough to point to which team has the more powerful motorcycle/rider combination.

Oh, and there will probably be some Zero Motorcycles bikes, and the Virginia Tech team, and maybe even one or two of the teams from Australia.  It's fair to say that in the overall rankings these teams will finish well down, but that doesn't mean their results won't be as interesting.  Effectively the TTXGP has three classes and the competition within these award categories is just as intense.

Lightning wins Le Mans e-Power/TTXGP while Muench wins the TTXGP European championhsip

Miguel Duhamel, riding for Barracuda Lightning, has won the e-Power/TTXGP joint race at Le Mans this weekend while Matthias Himmelmann (Muench Racing) has won the European championship in both series.  Duhamel took the pole position with strong finishes in both qualifying rounds.  Zongshen's Tang Yu came in third place.

Himmelmann led for the first couple laps

There was an intense battle between Duhamel and Himmelmann for first place, and Duhamel finished only 1.929 seconds ahead of Himmelmann.  Duhamel, one of the winningest racers in the AMA, came out of retirement for this race and has had less than 40 laps of track time with it.  “It was a fantastic race, said Miguel Duhamel with his delightful Quebec accent. Lightning is very powerful but you have to pace yourself to preserve the batteries for the end of the race. It’s the first time I’ve taken part in this type of race. I did 40 test laps this week, that’s all.”

The battle between Himmelmann and Duhamel included Himmelmann having his bike stop dead on the track after being out in front for a couple laps. “A bit of rubber got stuck in the circuit breaker. I found the problem after a general check and then I was able to chase down Miguel,” said Himmelmann.  Over on Facebook they explained it thusly: "Furios: Während des Rennens ist ein Stein auf den Notausfallschalter von Matthias Himmelmann gefallen, sodass dieser die TTE-2 ausschaltete. Eine außergewöhnliche Leistung, dass Matthias sich vom sechsten Platz wieder auf den zweiten Platz hochkämpfte!" The translate function unhelpfully provides this amusing attempt: "Furious: During the race a stone on the emergency failure switch by Matthias sky who has fallen, so it turned off the TTE-2. An exceptional performance, that Matthias again highly kämpfte is from sixth to second place! (Translated by Bing)"

Despite finishing second in the race, Himmelmann had a huge lead in points and won the European Championship for the third year running.

Tang Yu

This is the second podium finish for Tang Yu despite his teammates having more powerful bikes. "I am really happy to podium here in Le Mans representing Zongshen Racing and China. After the crash I had in the first practice the team had to work really hard to repair the damage and i am so please to be able to give them a podium position and thank them for building me a good bike. It was an exciting end to the European season and i am very happy to be involved. "

Christian Amendt had a motor failure during qualifying and had to rebuild his bike.  While he was able to finish the race he came in last place.  

Somehow Katja Poensgen only finished a couple laps.  On their facebook page this is written:  "Katja Poensgen, wird mit ihrer gestrigen Bestzeit von 2'05.677 von Platz 4 starten. Nach Problemen von Katja im ersten Qualifying am Donnerstag haben die Ingenieure nochmals Änderungen am Batteriesystem der MÜNCH TTE-2 vorgenommen. "Wir haben noch mal alles geprüft und anhand von Computerauswertungen Änderungen vorgenommen. Sie ist heute ohne technische Probleme die Distanz gefahren. Alle taktischen Maßnahmen für das Rennen um die Meisterschaft sind getroffen und abgesprochen," so Thomas Schuricht nach dem zweiten Qualifying. Das Rennen wird am Freitag den 7. September um 16:00 Uhr stattfinden."  Or: "Katja Poensgen, uses their yesterday's best lap of 2'05. 677 of 4th place start. After problems by Katja in the first qualifying session on Thursday the engineers have made again TTE-2 changes to the battery system of Munch. "We have again everything checked and changes made on the basis of computer evaluations." The distance is driven today without any technical problems. "All tactical measures for the race for the Championship are met and talked," so Thomas Schuricht after the second qualifying session. The race will be held on Friday 7 September at 16: 00. (Translated by Bing)"

Results from: http://www.egrandprix.com/news.php?id=316

Second qualifying round results from: http://www.egrandprix.com/news.php?id=312

The results:

pos	no	team	rider	ses.1	Ses.2	lap	gap	KM/h
1	17	Barracuda Lightning	Miguel Duhamel	1:49.200*	1:50.630	15		137.967
2	49	Muench Racing	Mattias Himmelmann	1:50.834	1:50.144*	15	0:00.944	136.785
3	59	Zongshen Racing	Ho Chi Fung	2:05.431*	2:10.827	12	0:16.231	120.144
4	65	Muench Racing	Katje Poensgen	2:05.677*	2:07.322	11	0:16.477	119.879
5	26	Zongshen Racing	Tang Yu		2:09.971*	9	0:20.771	115.918
6	70	Zongshen Racing	David Dumain		2:13.665*	7	0:24.465	112.715
7	36	Epo-bike.de	Christian Adment		2:15.900*	17	0:26.700	110.861

* Best time
Qualification time: 2:17.910 (120%)
The results are provisional until the time limit for protests and appeals.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=422851947752300&set=a.422851464419015.83084.270268563010640&type=1&theater

Post-race relaxation?  Miguel Duhamel in foreground, Richard Hatfield in background.  http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=422856671085161&set=a.422851464419015.83084.270268563010640&type=1&theater

Lightning leads after first qualifying round at e-Power/TTXGP Le Mans joint race

As I noted the other day, the Barracuda Lightning Motorcycles Racing team has gone to Le Mans for the e-Power/TTXGP race.  As expected the teams rider, Miguel Duhamel, is at the top of the results sheet for todays practice round, beating Matthias Himmelmann of Muench Racing.  Why expected?  Because of how far back Himmelmann finished behind the Lightning bikes at the Laguna Seca race.

At Laguna Seca, Himmelmann finished the race 16.325 seconds behind Michael Barnes on the Barracuda Lightning #80, and had a best lap time 1.927 seconds slower.  With a top-notch rider like Duhamel, the Lightning race bike should perform just as well as if Barnes were riding, and I expected that Lightning would win over Himmelmann/Muench again.

Miguel Duhamel

The results were:

#1, Barracuda Lightning, Miguel Duhamel, 1:49.200 best lap, 137.802 km/hr
#2, Muench Racing, Matthias Himmelmann, 1:50.834 best lap, 135.771 km/hr
#3, Zongshen Racing, Ho Chi-Fung, 2:05.431 best lap, 119.970 km/hr
#4, Muench Racing, Katja Poensgen, 2:05.677 best lap, 119.736 km/hr

Additionally three racers are shown as "Not classified" as being slower than the qualification time of 2:18.186 best lap time.

#5, epo-bike.de, Christian Amendt, 2:18.754 best lap, 108.451 km/hr
#6, Zongshen Racing, Tang Yu, 2:30.469 best lap
#7, Zongshen Racing, David Dumain, no stats listed

I don't know if this means these riders have no chance to qualify tomorrow or not.  The FIM e-Power series follows a qualification rule that, in essence, requires bikes to be within a given speed percentage of each other.  The three bikes name fell below that percentage.  Todays race is described as "first qualifier" so perhaps they'll be allowed a second chance in the second qualifier tomorrow.

Christian Amendt "was held up by problems with his electric motor".

Tang Yu "was stymied by a crash".

David Duhamel, is also driving in the 24 Hours of Le Mans race, and "fell in the qualifiers and was unable to take part in the first e-Power practice session."

Miguel Duhamel, 17 – Lightning Barracuda Racing Team

« I am pretty satisfied with my qualifying, said Miguel Duhamel, but I could have done better. I spent the last three years on my couch and I need to give myself a bit of a shake to get back into a competitive frame of mind. The motorcycle is going well and I am sure I shall be faster tomorrow. »

Matthias Himmelmann, 49 - Munch Racing TT

« After our big problems in Oschersleben, I am really pleased with this qualifier. I lapped in 1’50 compared to 1’52 last year. This weekend is very important as it will decide both the e-Power and TTXGP championship titles. »

The second qualifying round will be held at 10:00 AM on Friday, with the race proper at 4:35 PM on Friday.

Source: http://www.egrandprix.com/news.php?id=311

TTXGP 2012 North America: Brammo wins championship, VA Tech wins TTX75, Kluge wins eSuperStock

Steve Atlas (Brammo) won the TTXGP 2012 North American Championship this weekend, while team-mate Eric Bostrom won the weekends race.  Matt Kent (Virginia Tech) won in the TTX75 award group (7.5 kilowatt-hour battery pack), and Kenyon Kluge won in the eSuperStock award group.

Steve Atlas, TTXGP North America Champion for 2nd year running

For a full race report see  Brammo wins the TTXGP North American Championship 2nd year running

Eric Bostrom lead after the first half of the first lap, and ended up nearly 17 seconds ahead of Steve Atlas.  Considering that at Laguna Seca, Atlas finished just a couple seconds behind Michael Barnes riding for Lightning Motorcycles, one wonders what would have happened had Lightning ran in todays race.  In every meeting to date between Lightning and Brammo, Lightning won convincingly.  Since the Laguna Seca race, Brammo has been working hard tuning the new motor provided by Parker, and working with Bostrom on the setup of the bike.  Would Lightning beat Brammo today, or would it be the other way around?  We can't know.

The rider points for the season can let us play mental games about what could have been, rather than what did occur:

TTXGP North America 2012 Rider championship TOP FIVE:
Steve Atlas  Team Icon Brammo  65 points
Kenyon Kluge K sqaured Racing 51 points
Matt Kent Virginia Tech Bolt  45 points
Eric Bostrom  Team Icon Brammo 41 points
Michael Barnes  Baracuda Lightning  38 points 

1st place winners get 25 points, 2nd place winners get 20 points, 3rd place winners get 16 points, and so on.  How could the season results have been different had Lightning shown up to race?  This question is a great "what if" that we are not privileged to know the answer, because the universe we live in took a different path.

Where was Lightning?  Preparing for the e-Power/TTX race at Le Mans next weekend.

Jeremiah Johnson (BE-EV.COM) was present and ran in the qualifying and practice races.  While he has improved his bike considerably since Laguna Seca (where it didn't even run), the bike gave Johnson enough trouble on the track that he pulled out of the race.

Tang Yu of Zongshen Racing wins e-Power/TTX at Oschersleben

In what they're describing as an "epic battle," Tang Yu of Zongshen Racing is the surprise winner of this weekends e-Power/TTX at Oschersleben.  We say "surprise" because his teammate, Ho Chi Fung, has the more powerful of Zongshen's bikes, and two of Muench's bikes are more powerful than Tang Yu's, and with the results of yesterday's sprint race it seemed likely to be a Muench/Muench/Zongshen podium.   However, the top bikes all developed problems leaving the field open to the win by Tang Yu.

Himmelmann started off the race strong with but by the middle of the race (lap 4) his battery pack overheated.  He says the bike stopped, but he was able to get it going again, and he pulled into the pits to check voltages and temperatures, and it seemed okay so he went back onto the track.  But the bike was riding "horribly" and stopped two more times.  The last was just a couple hundred yards short of the finish line, and he was unable to get the bike started back up, so he pushed it over the finish line.

Katja Poensgen says she was following Ho Chi Fung for a few laps to see how his bike would perform, and was confident she could overtake him any time she wanted.  But then the bike stopped, and she was able to restart it, but then it stopped again, and that time the marshals wouldn't let her continue.

Tang Yu - Zongshen

Ho Chi Fung also had electrical problems (no interview was posted with him) and he had to drop out.  Tang Yu did say "I really wish my team mate Ho Chi Fung gets the bike he deserves for the next round. The team are working hard on the new development bike but there is much to learn with a whole different set up, new motors, battery pack and control systems. I hope at the next round in Le Mans he will be able to join me on the podium."

Tang Yu said he nearly crashed on the first lap, putting him in last place, and he was so busy working his way up the grid that he was a bit surprised to be the winner.

Christian Amendt – 36 / Epo-bike.de "I was so happy that I was able to manage my small battery pack for such long race whilst keep respectable lap times. It was awesome to finish 3rd and get on the podium here in Germany. I have to say it was also really great to have so many good quality competitors here this weekend and a lot of spectators. I found the whole weekend really good fun especially with the introduction of the new sprint race, which I feel is a really good idea."

http://www.egrandprix.com/news.php?id=306

http://www.fim-live.com//en/media/news/news-detail/article/1344783180-yu-tang-nails-it-over-ten-laps/

Matthias Himmelmann (Münch Racing) wins the Oschersleben Sprint

It's another joint round between FIM e-Power and TTXGP, this time in Oschersleben in Germany.  Race results have been posted, but in this report I'll focus on the Friday and Saturday results.  On Saturday they held a "three lap sprint" race, which Matthias Himmelmann won.  There was an over 20 second gap between him and team-mate Katja Poensgen, and the 2nd/3rd/4th/5th places all finished fairly close together indicating a fairly serious race going on between Muench and Zongshen.

A surprising thing I see in the results is Peter Linden racing with Zongshen.  Usually he's racing with his own bike, but Zongshen now has three bikes.  At the prior race, Assen, Zongshen enlisted Wayne Tessels to ride the third bike.  This time around it is Peter Linden riding it.

That's Katja Poensgen in front, with Matthias Himmelmann in the rear and Thomas Schuricht in the middle (all Muench)

The three lap sprint was meant to let the riders showcase high speed riding, by not having to conserve battery power as they do for longer races.

1st place: Matthias Himmelman, no. 49 Muench Racing "I have to say I had a really great race with an exceptionally strong start, I was confident going into the race especially with such a great German crowd cheering on the team. They really help inspire us to do the best we can to put on a good show. The Sprint for me was a lot of fun because it allows everyone to to just race and not worry about battery management as they mst do for the longer race. I am happy so many of our sponsors where able to be here and share the experience. We have more than 100 guests celebrating in our teams hospitality unit and the atmosphere here at Oschersleben is great, we are really happy to have a first and second place today, but it will be even better when we have the whole podium tomorrow."

2nd place: Katya Poensgen No. 65 Muench Racing "It was fantastic racing in the sprint, it is so raw, I could just open the throttle and go. It was short; I was not sweating but it was a lot of fun. I will do my best to go faster tomorrow for the big race. My bike has a different engine that Matthias’s bike as I am on the production racer and he has a development motor. We also run a different type of battery pack on this bike to the development bike as this is totally enclosed so safer, but it means you have to be more careful with over-heating. I am confident for tomorrow and looking forward to representing Muench once again."
3rd place : Ho chi Fung; no.59 Zongshen "As a racer I don’t feel any different going into a sprint race or a longer distance one, I just want to go out there and win. The feeling is just the same. This race was great, I started from further back on the grid than I would have liked as we had some battery pack problems with the bike yesterday after the morning qualification where I was still learning the track. I only completed a few laps yesterday morning before we had some issues with the battery pack so I was forced to go slower than I had wanted to. We spent a lot of yesterday afternoon working hard on the pack, and missed the second qualifying session. Over night we have charged and discharged the new configuration; my team have worked really hard to give me the best possible bike for the race and everything seems to be holding ok. I am really optimistic about electric racing; I have only been eracing for a few years but have along history with my first love Petrol bikes, but my team is amazing and the pace at which the technology is developing I am confident it will not take them too long before they will be build me a bike that will go even faster the traditional petrol fuelled bikes."

".. I expected this new bike with a more powerful motor and better batteries to be faster; I had really high expectations and was really disappointed in Assen with all the problems we had been having but this was due to the lack of time to properly prepare and test the bike away from racing. The team are still getting to know this new bike but learning very fast. This morning I had a bit of traffic in front of me including my team mate Tang Yu; it actually took me over half a lap to get ahead of him as he was racing well. I got really close to Thomas in the second lap coming out of the chicane, but his bike is very powerful on the straights, I thought I would wait until the last corner to try again, and it worked for me. I got closer and closer and finally took over him on the right side on the last corner… I actually was disappointed though as I wanted to come second today, we felt we had the bike and racer to do this but with the traffic early on it was impossible to catch them all in just three laps., I need a little more time. We look forward to tomorrows race."
4th place: Thomas Schricht, no. 6 Muench racing "I am not sure exactly what happened because I have not had the time yet to examine the date from the bikes but I was so happy in the first lap, the bike was doing much better than yesterday and I had a great feeling about the race. I was actually trying to push the bike further and try to catch Katya but I made a small mistake in the chicane in lap twp and noticed that Ho Chi had come up really close. I then focused on making up the ground and in the last lap in the last corner, just when I need to keep maximum power, Ho Chi sailed passed me and my bike just didn’t give me the power I needed as it should have done.  Overall I had a great race, it was a lot of fun racing in a sprint, we have obviously meet with Zongshen on the track a number of times and they are always great to race against."

RACE ONE

pos	no.	rider	team (bike)	time	gap	best (lap)
1	49	Himmelman	Muench (Muench TTE)	5:02.397		1:38.481 (2)
2	65	Poensgen	Muench (Muench TTE)	5:26.100	23.703	1:46.683 (3)
3	59	Fung	Zongshen (Zongshen)	5:30.231	27.703	1:46.588 (3)
4	6	Schricht	Muench (Muench TTE)	5:31.727	29.330	1:47.858 (2)
5	25	Yu	Zongshen (Zongshen)	5:37.289	34.892	1.48.881 (2)
6	36	Amendt	Epo (Epobike)	5:45.968	43.571	1.53.142 (2)
7	72	Reichmann	Reichmann Racing (mavizen TTX02)	5:47.529	45.132	1:52.167 (3)
8	64	Linden	Zongshen (Zongshen)	5:48.422	46.045	1:52.385 (3)
9	91	Bergau	Bergau Racing (mavizen TTX02)	5:51.170	48.773	1:53.782 (3)
Fastest lap
	49	Himmelman	Muench			138.481 (2)

Harold Gasse did  not qualify to take place in today's race.

http://www.egrandprix.com/news.php?id=305

http://www.egrandprix.com/news.php?id=303 (for Friday)

Muench Racing wins TTXGP Europe at Assen

Muench Racing's Matthias Himmelman won last weekend's race in the TTXGP Europe race at Assen (see the report on the qualifying round), with two riders from Zongshen Racing about 20 seconds behind.  Himmelman's bike is running with a new motor, and the team is getting more comfortable with its characteristics.  Zongshen's Hi Chi Fung's bike also has a new motor, but clearly given his performance for the weekend they have a lot of kinks to work out.

The Brouwers' are a brother-sister racing team where Mike was given a 2010 Mavizen, and Kim was given Agni's 2009 bike.  Neither should be expected to be terribly competitive in today's TTXGP, but the report on the TTXGP website makes it clear they enjoyed themselves anyway.  The Mavizen ridden by Mike had run well on Friday and Saturday, but come Sunday developed a serious problem described as "the team discovered the bike built in 2010 had for the first time developed a flaw that resulted in excess weight being put onto the drive shaft."  Engineers worked on a fix, that let Mike take the bike out, but it wasn't right and he had to bow out of the race.  On Kim's bike they had trouble getting things tuned right, and were unable to set the controllers past 70% and thus the bike didn't have full power.  Nelson Rolfes also had a Mavizen TTX02, but one of the motors blew up due to a chain that was too tight.

That left the field to Muench and Zongshen.  The new #59 bike ridden by Hi Chi Fung was described as a prototype for what will be Zongshen's 2013 race bike and as such they were looking more to collect data than anything.  The other two took 2nd and 3rd, and the race results show they had nearly identical performance.  Normally Zongshen has two bikes, but with the addition of a third bike this round meant taking on a new rider, and 18 yr old Dutchman Wayne Tessels was the lucky one.  He said “I had a great weekend, it was a lot of fun and I would like to race electric again!”

Himmelman took the lead after 3 laps and ran a comfortable race, tussling a little with Tang Yu early on but ultimately making winning look too easy. The team had had some disappointment though as they had planned to enter a second bike into the championship – team engineer (Thomas Schuricht) wanted to get in on the action but sadly his start permission did not arrive in time from Germany. Look out for Thomas at Oschersleben, the joint TTXGP/e-Power race coming up next weekend.
http://www.egrandprix.com/news.php?id=301

Pos	no.	name	team	gap	total time	fastest	in	average speed
1	49	Himmelman	Muench	6 laps	12:28.080	1:55.654	6	131.52
2	26	Tang Yu	Zongshen	20.348	12:48.428	2:05.985	6	128.03
3	64	Wayne Tessels	Zongshen	22.277	12:50.357	2:05.803	2	127.71
4	59	Hi Chi Fung	Zongsehn	1:01.480	13.29.560	2:05.188	5	121.53
5	62	Kim Brouwers	Agni Racing Team		13:45.276	2:37.700	2	99.34
Not Classified
DNF	88	Nelson Rolfes	KTM Mulders Motoren	3 laps	6:45.871	2:07.514	2	121.2
DNF	25	Mike Browers	Brouwers Racing team	3 laps	10:50.209	2:19.291	1	75.65

Video of Steve Atlas celebrating TTXGP win while other riders are still racing

In the TTXGP North America 2nd round, at Portland International Raceway, there was a little allegation that Steve Atlas had "stopped" on the track because his race was over, but there were still riders whose final laps had not finished.  Supposedly this interfered with those riders, and one (or more) of them were angry, and there was a bit of a stink going around the paddock that afternoon after the race was finished.  However I didn't think there would be any proof of this, until watching this video by Troy Siahaan of Motorcycle.com who was one of the riders selected by Zero Motorcycles to ride the eSuperStock at Portland.  We see in his video report details of the event.

Specifically .. Steve Atlas can be seen zooming by at some point, and it gives you an idea of the huge performance gap between the fast bikes and the slow bikes.  The eSuperStock bikes are shown in their final lap, and they come up to Steve Atlas who is riding slowly in the middle of the track, and rather than riding in a race stance, he's sitting upright and waving to the fans.  Obviously Steve-o was in his celebration mode, having won the race.  Not that there was any doubt that weekend, after MotoCzysz pulled out.  But there were other riders still racing, but there he was blocking the middle of the track.

Is this a big deal?  I dunno, but I felt it was important enough to warrant writing this followup.

Qualifying round results for TTXGP at Assen

This weekend is the TTXGP race at Assen, and while I know the race has been run, I'm running a little behind ...

A brother-sister team, Mike & Kim Brouwers of Brouwers Racing, are new participants this time.  Kim Brouwers is riding Agni Motors' 2009 bike which won that years TTXGP on the Isle of Man, while Mike Brouwers was riding a 2010 Mavizen bike.  In Kim's case, the bike had controller issues that left only one motor running, and in Mikes case the bike was just slow (the 2010 Mavizen bikes were never speed demons).  As of the qualifying round, both are said to be disappointed, but it's possible that the support engineers have simply dialed down the controllers because both these riders are new to electric machines.

Meunch Racing is happy to be there, having just raced in America at Laguna Seca.  They're replacing the front fork on Himmelmann's bike, and he's quoted saying “I love my new motor, it is very powerful and once I have my front fork set up just how I like, I know I will be putting in faster lap-times, I know and like this circuit and am confident for tomorrow.”  BTW - the "new motor" he refers to is due to the team having replaced the Siemens motor they'd used since 2010, with a new one (on both bikes) from Wittenstein.

Zongshen has introduced a new bike which is described as "next years machine" and this year they are testing that new machine by racing it.


Results from the qualifying session are as follows :

Pos	No.	Name	team	fastest (in)	gap	diff	speed
1	49	Matthias Himmelman	Muench Racing	1:53.710			144.2
2	59	Ho Chi Fung	Zongshen racing	2:02.617	8:907	8:907	133.73
3	64	Wayne Tessels	Zongshen Racing	2:06.010	12.300	3.393	130.13
4	26	Tang Yu	Zongshen Racing	2:09.283	15.573	3.273	126.83
5	25	Mike Brouwers	Brouwer racing	2:16.858	23.148	7.575	119.81
6	62	Kim Brouwers	Bruwer Racing	2:47.904	54.194	31.046	97.66

 2 non starters for qualifying session.

http://www.egrandprix.com/news.php?id=299

Zonghshen Racing has a new ride - w/ Yasa motor

Zongshen Racing has been riding bikes powered by Agni motors since their entree into TTXGP racing in 2010.  That year the team raced with the bike that Rob Barber rode for Agni to victory in the initial TTXGP on the Isle of Man.  During 2011 the team built two bikes of their own, again with Agni motors, which they've raced with during both 2011 and 2012 seasons.  This weekend is the TTXGP at Assen, and Zongshen brought a new bike, making three for the team.

This marks a departure for Zongshen.  As I said, until now the team has been racing with Agni motors, and doing very well against the competition.  The switch to Yasa motors should give them more power and of course switch them from permanent magnet brushed DC to a proper AC motor.

Currently the team is racing with the two Agni powered machines they already have, and this new Yasa powered machine.

Going by the specs below, the team is using a YASA-750 motor which the company describes as so:

The YASA-750 has been designed as high torque direct drive motor for sport car and racing applications. The motor outputs a very high peak torque (750Nm) and a high continuous torque (400Nm) in a lightweight package (25kg).

The motor can deliver up to 100kW of peak power with a top speed of 2000 rpm (higher powers and speeds possible above 380V). The motors can deliver a high continuous power of >50kW (1800rpm and 300Nm continuous, for example).

Zongshen ZSE002RR Technical Specifications:

 General

Chassis – Steel Trellis
Front Forks – Showa
Rear Suspension – Showa
Wheels – OZ Magnesium
Brakes – Brembo
Instruments and Data logging – AIM Gold
Bodywork – Custom Aosracing
Total Weight – 210kg

Motor

Yasa Advanced Axial Flux brushless motor
Peak Power – 100kW
Peak Torque – 750Nm
Weight – 25kg
Peak Efficiency >94%
Cooling – Liquid cooled

Battery Pack

A123 Prismatic 20Ah Lithium Nanophosphate
Voltage – 380V Charged, 343V nominal
Storage Capacity – 6.84kWh
Cell weight – 51.5kg

Controller

Sevcon Gen 4 Size 8
Peak Power Output – 100kW
Peak current – 360Arms
Max voltage – 400VDC
Weight – 10kg
Cooling – Liquid cooled


http://www.egrandprix.com/news.php?id=300

http://www.yasamotors.com/technology/products/yasa-750

Virginia Tech wins TTX75 award, Kenyon Kluge wins eSuperStock award, at e-Power/TTX Laguna Seca

In the rush to announce the overall winners from last weekends e-Power/TTXGP race at Laguna Seca, I forgot to mention the two awards.  The TTXGP offers an overall ranking of 1st through 10th (or whatever) place finishers, and in addition has two special awards for specific subsets of the racing grid.  These are the TTX75 award (for bikes under 7.5 kilowatt-hours battery pack) and the eSuperStock award (for production bikes with sales volume over 25 units).  Both of these are experimental classifications that may eventually become proper race classes.



In the TTX75 award group, Virginia Tech was the winner.  Ely Schless of Protomoto was on track to be the winner of this award, but his battery pooped out on the last lap and he did not finish the race.  See Virginia Tech Bolt upgrading for next season!



In the eSuperStock award group, Kenyon Kluge won.  This group started to have only two riders, but Jeremiah Johnson joined this group when he wasn't able to get his own bike running.  Kenyon races under the name K Squared Racing, and is a Zero Motorcycles employee, and was instrumental in creating this award group.    Kluge wins the eSuperstock Award at Laguna Seca

The racers in the eSuperStock award group have been characterized by very close racing.  In the three events so far, these bikes have been running very close together and we have seen good racing action between these riders.  The bikes in this group are all Zero S's primarily because they defined eSuperStock so that only the Zero S (and DS) can qualify.  The S's aren't the best bike to base a racing series on, because the top speed is 88 miles per hour, but because the bikes are identical the results in this group depend more rider skill than anything else.  In the rest of electric motorcycle racing it is the design of each specific bike which does more to determine the overall winner.

Virginia Tech (VT-BOLT) team announces intention to develop GP Class bike for 2013 TTXGP

The Virginia Tech team is a newcomer to the TTXGP scene, but have made two impressive showings so far.  The team has won the TTX75 classification ("award") in both outings, at Portland, and now at Laguna Seca.



The team has issued a press release saying the following:

Finally we are pleased to announce our intentions of building a GP class bike for the 2013 season.  Thanks to the TTXGP for making this great series possible, we are looking forward to seeing everyone at Miller in August.

Lightning 1st & Brammo 2nd/3rd in 2012 e-Power/TTX at Laguna Seca - with pictures

See my full race report at: Lightning and Brammo win 2012 e-Power/TTX race at Laguna Seca during Red Bull US Grand Prix

The big takeaway is the speed & lap time improvements over the 2011 and 2010 races.  Where last year 1 bike was ridden at speeds matching the 600cc superbikes (Steve Rapp riding for Mission Motors), this year three bikes were ridden at that speed.  See Lightning and Brammo wins Laguna Seca e-Power/TTX electric motorcycle race

Michael Barnes had the fastest laptime last weekend during qualifying, 1:33.860.  This didn't beat Steve Rapp's 1:31 last year, but came close, and Barnes did not attempt to beat that time during the race.  He was focused instead on staying just far enough ahead of Steve Atlas to win, but not so far ahead that he would have risked running out of kilowatt-hours.

However, Barnes, Steve Atlas and Eric Bostrom (new rider for Brammo) all had lap times during the race which were faster than the slowest of the bikes which qualified in the Daytona Sportbike (600cc gas bike) race held the same weekend.

This is a big stride forward for electric motorcycle racing - last year it was one bike reaching this level, now there are three.  And the next two bikes were ridden for lap times within one second of the slowest of the 600cc gas bikes, making it five bikes in total that are within range of speed parity with gas bikes.