What does the "future of AMA road racing" say about the future of electric motorcycle racing

While looking for something else I stumbled across an interesting opinion article on motorcycle-usa.com about how the AMA was failing at promoting motorcycle racing in the US, despite being controlled by NASCAR.  The thrust of the article was that given the success of NASCAR, those people ought to be able to reawaken the US to motorcycle racing, so that fans would flock to the AMA which is the premier motorcycle racing series in the US.  But, what does this have to do with electric motorcycle racing?  It illustrates to us the opinion of one motorcycle racer as to the role and purpose of the racing promotion organization.

SteveO, Brian Wismann, and other Brammo crew
2011 TTXGP at Infineon Raceway

The interesting thing is the author of that piece, and the timing of when it was published.  The name Steve Atlas is familiar to us because he'd ridden with Brammo during the 2011 and 2012 TTXGP seasons.  The date on the article?  May 3, 2011, or just prior to his first outing with Brammo at the 2011 TTXGP at Infineon Raceway.

So, what did SteveO have to say about the AMA on the eve of his career in electric motorcycle racing?

"With the series’ schedule shrinking year by year and fan attendance dwindling at every round, is there a future?"

... And ...

"With a significant piece of its current business model based on making money by charging riders and teams as much as humanly possible for credentials, it will be difficult to continue with the perpetually shrinking grids we are seeing these days."

... And ...

"Secondly, when was the last time you rolled into a city hosting an upcoming AMA race and heard a single radio plug, saw a billboard or watched a TV commercial promoting the event? And they wonder why no one comes out to the races; they don’t even know they exist."

2011 TTXGP at Miller Motorsports
SteveO (Brammo), Thad Wolff (Moto Electra)
The rider for Lightning is either Ted Rich or the other guy they had

In other words, it's the role of the race promoter organization to, um, actually promote the race. The lack of awareness about the series rests solely in the lap of the race promoter, who is responsible for getting media attention on the series.  This is especially demonstrated when SteveO closes with this: "They need to figure out how to get people to come to the track and seriously boost the TV viewing audience. This hinges 100% around their ability to promote the sport."

These guys riding the bikes in the races - they, and the rest of their teams, need to earn a paycheck, just like the rest of us.   In racing that paycheck ultimately derives from fans, who buy tickets, and whose eyeballs the advertisers are trying to reach. 

Everything he wrote was aimed at DMG, the race promoter for AMA at the time.  But, what he wrote could also be said of the electric motorcycle racing promotion organizations, TTXGP, FIM e-Power and eRoadRacing.  It was TTXGP's job to promote the race series, just as it's eRoadRacing's job today to do so.  FIM is the sanctioning and rules organization, eRoadRacing is the promoter.  How much of the typical promotion has TTXGP or eRoadRacing done?  There's a TV deal with SpeedTV, but what else?

Essentially nobody knows about electric motorcycle racing, and the sport is suffering for it.  Well, the first part isn't entirely true.  Sometime in 2012 there were some AT&T line workers in the neighborhood working on the wires, and they spotted my car and we got to talking about restoring cars and electric vehicles.  Turns out they'd seen something on SpeedTV about electric motorcycle racing, so clearly that deal has resulted in SOME awareness.  But whatever that was hasn't been enough to cause a flock of fans to get rabidly excited about the sport.

Maybe it's just that the technology (still) isn't mature enough, despite the huge leaps and bounds of improvements that have been made.  The speeds and race length aren't on par with AMA's racing.  Yes, the speed of the top bikes are close to AMA 600cc superbikes, but the race length is only half AMA's.  At the speed bracket of the top electric bikes, it's close enough to the gassers to be good enough to make exciting racing, but only if there were a large enough grid of top electric bikes.

Which gets back to the question of funding.  It costs big bucks to field a top electric bike team, so where is the money going to come from?  While the teams are responsible for finding their sponsors, it's the responsibility, as SteveO said, to make the whole sport so compelling that sponsors organically show up looking for teams to sponsor.

Source: http://www.motorcycle-usa.com/790/9851/Motorcycle-Article/The-Future-of-AMA-Road-Racing--Is-There-One-.aspx

Formula E boss: "We can create battery-heads"

The Formula E boss, Alejandro Agag, spoke at a technology fair in Barcelona recently, claiming that the Formula E will speak to the Facebook/iPad generation, and that the series will inspire a generation of battery heads.

What he's referring to is a demographic shift created by the flourishing of mobile electronics devices and the rise of Internet services.  He said that he grew up dreaming of buying a Ferrari, but kids today dream of the latest iPad.

Maybe there's something to that.  But given what I've seen via electric motorcycle racing, the theory he's proposing isn't necessarily the case.  While there are some young people involved and interested, there are plenty of older people involved and interested, and I haven't seen any evidence that the demographics of the electric motorcycle racing field is tilted to the young.

Are those who focus on their iPads and Internet services willing to go to a real world racing event?  

Where I do agree with Agag is that electric racing appeals to a different sort of person, and appeals in a different way than does gasoline driven racing.

For example, the lack of noise means that the physical experience of the race feels different than gasoline powered racing does.  It resonates in a different place in the body, appealing to a different aspect of the person.

That means, the lack of noise isn't a bad thing, it just makes electric racing different.

And, once people experience electric racing, see what a proper electric race vehicle can do, perhaps the audience will become as enthralled with the innards of electric race vehicles just as they get rabidly focused on the innards of today's petroleum powered race vehicles.  E.g. "Battery Heads" versus "Petrol Heads".

Source: http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motorsport/formula-e-boss-we-can-create-battery-heads#!

2013, the year long distance electric vehicle travel started to become common-place

This year, 2013, is turning into a watershed year for long distance electric motorcycle and car trips.  As I write this Terry Hershner is taking another of his long distance electric motorcycle trips, and while he's not going to beat the record he was aiming for, it's still quite an accomplishment that he's even doing it.  It would be helpful to review the years other trips, so let's go.

Almost a year ago, Terry Hershner set off on a trip from Florida to Los Angeles with his Zero S, aiming to attend a motorcycle show at which Zero Motorcycles unveiled their 2013 product line.  This actually happened in 2012 but it positioned Terry for the rest of the trips he took this year.

In June 2013 two trips took place simultaneously.  In one, Team Moto Electra (Brian Richardson, Thad Wolff, and crew) left Jacksonville Florida on a trip to Santa Monica.  They completed it in 3 1/2 days, and had the support of a van full of parts and supplies, hauling a generator on a trailer.  In the other,  Terry Hershner set out from California attempting to reach Jacksonville Florida before Moto Electra left.  Unfortunately a SNAFU prevented him doing so, and they didn't manage to meet each other on the road.

In June 2013 another trip started with two Zero FX riders traveling from Shanghai China to Milan Italy, along with a support crew. Their trip is chronicled on http://www.meneghinaexpress.com/en/ .. Originally it was to take 35 days, but it took 45 instead. Some numbers: 12379 Kilometers in 44 days, 350 hours riding, 297 batteries recharged, 12 countries.

The next major US event was the BC2BC rally, in which several electric cars were driven from the British Columbia border south to the Baja California border.

Terry Hershner wanted to participate in that rally.  But, he had a problem.  His previous trip had positioned him in Florida.  So, of course, he first rode his electric motorcycle from Florida to the British Columbia border to meet the BC2BC rally at their starting line.  He arrived at the last minute, worn out from the long trip and, so I heard it, with an empty battery pack.  But he still placed very well in the BC2BC rally, which he actually found very relaxing compared to his other trips.

The BC2BC rally consisted of three Tesla Model S's, one Tesla Roadster, one Zero S electric motorcycle, a Gen2 Toyota RAV4 EV, two Nissan Leaf's, and a Mitsubishi i-MiEV.  A Model S won, of course, because they're designed for road trips.  However, Terry Hershner came in 2nd place with his Zero S.

Shortly after the BC2BC rally another cross country electric vehicle rally made it to California.  This group of people had set out from North Carolina for a 45 day trek across the country.  The vehicles included an electric bicycle, two or three electric scooters, an electric motorcycle, a Nissan Leaf, and a support van.  The length of the trip, 45 days, was because of the electric bicycle.  Terry Hershner joined up with them in Los Angeles, riding with them to their finish line on the Google Campus in Mountain View.  The electric motorcycle that completed the whole journey was a Zero S ridden by Ben Rich.

In mid-July, Terry Hershner set off on another trip, attempting to reach the Columbus Ohio area for Craig Vetter's fuel economy challenge at the vintage motorcycles event at the Mid-Ohio race track.  However, a SNAFU while traveling through the mountains of Colorado cut that trip short.  He repaired the bike, but had already missed the fuel economy challenge, and instead returned to California via the scenic route, swinging into Arizona to see the Grand Canyon.

Finally, in November 2013 after a few months of work to refine his bike setup, Terry Hershner set off from San Diego to Florida attempting to beat the time set up Team Moto Electra back in June.  Unfortunately yet another SNAFU, this time in Austin Texas, meant he wasn't able to beat their time.  However, he should be able to beat the time he had last summer and still hold the record for fastest unassisted cross country electric motorcycle trip.

As Tesla Model S's become more commonplace, and as the Tesla Supercharger network is built out, long distance electric vehicle trips should become commonplace.  The phase we're in right now is similar to early airplane experiments, where dashing young aviators bravely took to the sky taking ever-longer flights trying to prove that airplanes could handle long distance travel.  Nowadays it's completely routine to take a long distance airplane flight, but 80+ years ago that wasn't the case.  Today's electric vehicle pioneers are proving to the rest of us that long distance electric travel is possible.

Terry Hershner reminded that lane splitting is illegal in Texas

Last we saw of Terry Hershner last night had him going to a motel for sleep after SNAFU'ing his bike.  This morning Terry posted the following update:

Today in Austin I'm hoping to meet with the folks at ReVolt and do a custom electrical connection repair. In the meantime here's a recap of trip. Depending if we can get it fixed in time, we are sill hoping to be the fastest electric vehicle to cross coast to coast charging with existing infrastructure, and the first electric motorcycle to cross the country with a passenger. More updates later today...

Around the same time Chelsea (Bun Bun) posted they'd gone to the ATX Hackerspace, which is an Austin-area shop similar to the Hacker Dojo and other Hacker Spaces.  Obviously that was one stop in their quest to repair the connectors necessary to reconnect the add-on battery pack to the main pack.

Last night's SNAFU was to overheat and melt the Anderson connector and other wiring for the addon pack.  The workaround he did last night was to disconnect the add-on battery pack, reducing the bike to a 9 kilowatt-hour main pack.  That's enough to get around town, but not enough for the 1,000 miles remaining to cover.  Reconnecting the add-on pack means building new cables and connectors, hence visiting an EV Conversion shop like ReVolt, or stores like Graingers, or the Hackerspace, looking for parts and tools.

While running around town, Terry forgot that Texas doesn't allow motorcycles to lane split.  That led to a conversation with a police officer which Terry described in the Facebook post below.

The other thing we're learning from these two updates is that Terry is conceding that, this trip, he won't beat the 84.5 hours record set by Team Moto Electra last summer.  He can still set another record having to do with a solo electric motorcycle trip, and also set a whole new record for this being the first electric motorcycle to cross the country with a passenger.

That's what we like about Terry, always looking to push the boundaries of what's possible.

Post by Off The Grid.

Ho Chi Fung and Eric Bostrom winners of the 2013 eRoadRacing World Cup

Eric Bostrom at Laguna Seca

It appears the eRoadRacing World Cup crew quietly closed out the 2013 season without holding a World Final race.  A press release has popped up on motorcycle-usa.com and roadracingworld.com saying that Ho Chi Fung (Zongshen) and Eric Bostrom (Brammo) are the winners of the 2013 eRoadRacing season, its first season in existence.  Eric Bostrom took first place in the eRoadRacing North America 2013 series, while Ho Chi Fung took first place in the European series.

The full results for the season (see pictures below, copied from the eRoadRacing website) show

Europe:

1. #59 Hoi Chi Fung (Zongshen) 75 pts
2. #91 Sue Rong Zai (Zongshen) 61 pts
3. #62 Sam West (Agni Racing) 57 pts

North America:

1. #32 Eric Bostrom (Brammo) 45 pts
2. #96 Kenyon Kluge (K Squared Racing) 36 pts
3. #64 Jeremiah Johnson (BE-EV.COM Racing) 29 pts

The discrepancy in points totals reflects the fact that the European series had four events versus only two events in North America. 

The press release included these quotes.  I see two things being referenced by the quotes. 

When Bostrom says "I want a world championship" he may be referring to the plan in which, starting with the 2014 season, the eRoadRacing series won't be split into continent-level racing series.  Instead it will be a proper world championship, with the same set of teams competing at sites around the world in the same series.  As I say below, we haven't seen eRoadRacing's announcement for the 2014 season and what their plans are.

When Wismann says "we wish we would have had a bit more competition," well, lots of us feel the same way.  Several teams that are known to have top flight bikes that are competitive with, or superior to, the Bramo Empulse RR, simply did not compete in the 2013 eRoadRacing North America series.  We all wish Brammo had had proper competition at the top end, and there are teams in North America with bikes that can beat the Empulse RR, and who can turn in lap times competitive with the gas bikes.  Those teams did some amazing things in 2013, achieving big successes, but the top end eRoadRacing competition was left to Brammo for the 2013 season.

Eric Bostrom, FIM eRoad Racing North American Cup winner 2013, said: ‘The development we have seen in these bikes year-on-year is just amazing. It has been a real pleasure racing in the series with Brammo, the team have been fantastic and Shane was very fast as well. Now I can’t wait to see how the bikes will perform in 2014 because I want a world championship!’

Brian Wismann, Brammo Team Manager, added: ‘Team Icon Brammo is proud to take home a third North American winner and continue our reign as World Champions through to the 2014 season. Congratulations to Eric Bostrom as he’s definitely put in the effort to deserve this award. We wish we would have had a bit more competition but it didn’t stop us from continuing to develop the bikes into more formidable race machines and achieving our technical goals. We’re looking forward to seeing who steps up to challenge the Empulse RR in 2014.’

Ho Chi Fung, FIM eRoad Racing European Cup winner 2013, said: ‘This has been a great season for electric motorcycles and it’s an honour to be crowned European Series winner. I want to say thank you to all the team who all put in so much effort to make this happen. Now we’re looking forward to improving the bike ahead of next season. We want to win this championship again.’

Daniel Chung, Zongshen Team Manager, added: ‘We’re obviously very happy with our season, we have seen a lot of developments with the AC-motored machine and it has been a real learning curve. Now we want to take want we have found into next season and keep developing these bikes to become the fastest out there.’

Originally, there was going to be a eRoadRacing World Final race for the 2013 season.  It was going to be open to the top teams from each series.  However, I'd been hearing from the eRoadRacing team about difficulties finding a location for that race, with several possible locations named.  Another symptom of those difficulties was the cancellation of the third North America event (Miller Motorsports) and the inability to schedule an event at the World Superbike event at Laguna Seca.

The next big piece of news we expect from eRoadRacing is an announcement of the 2014 Season schedule, characteristics, and rules.  A year ago they told me the 2014 season was going to be very different from 2013, a season conducted very similarly to how the TTXGP was operated.

eRoadRacing 2013 Europe final standings

eRoadRacing 2013 North America final standings

Texas takes its toll on Terry Hershner's trip, stuck in Austin wating for Graingers to open

Terry Hershner was doing pretty good, made it to Austin at a reasonable time today.  But, then, Texas took its toll on his trip, and I suppose beating the record is now out of the question.

On Facebook, Terry explained that they'd been at the Whole Foods charging and showing the bike to passers-by and taking pictures .. but a SNAFU occurred, in which part of the charging system shut off, shunting the entire charge current through connectors not built to take 280 amps of current.  By the time he noticed the connectors had melted preventing use of the addon battery pack, leaving the bike in its 9 kilowatt-hour stock configuration.

Friends are posting suggestions to him on Facebook but since it's after Midnight on a Sunday night, there aren't any open stores at which he could buy Anderson connectors, welding cable, ring terminals or the crimping tools required to rebuild the cables.  It seems there's a couple Graingers stores that open at 7:30 AM, so Terry should be able to get back on the road pretty quick after building new cables.  In the meantime they're staying overnight in a Motel.

Will he make it in time to beat the existing record?  Team Moto Electra has the record, set in June, taking 3 1/2 days to travel from Jacksonville FL to Santa Monica (84.5 hours).  At the time they did that trip, Terry was attempting to make the same trip in reverse, going from San Diego to Jacksonville.  But a SNAFU on that trip cost him time and he took a bit longer than they did.  Terry should be getting extra consideration because his trips have been solo while Moto Electra's trip was a whole team of people, along with a van and trailer full of parts and a portable generator.  I dearly love everyone on Team Moto Electra, but there's a world of difference between what they did and what Terry is doing.

In any case, Terry's departure from San Diego was at 2:22 EST on Friday.  By my rough estimation he'd be leaving Austin by Noon local time, or at about the 72ish hours mark.   I'm guessing it's nearly impossible to make it from Austin to Jacksonville FL in 12ish hours with any kind of vehicle, much less one that has to stop every so often for an hour of charging.  In any case the hard deadline to get to Jacksonville and beat Moto Electra's record is 2:22 AM Tuesday morning.

At the same time, just finishing a cross country electric motorcycle trip is amazing enough even if Terry doesn't beat the record.  We want Terry to arrive safely, and if that means not beating the record then so be it.

Post by Off The Grid.

Post by Off The Grid.

Remniscing over AHRMA's history with TTXGP electric motorcycle racing

The other day we learned of a new electric motorcycle racing series that will be run under the AHRMA umbrella.  There's actually a fair bit of history of AHRMA hosting electric motorcycle racing, and I thought it might be worth recounting that history.

First, AHRMA is the American Historic Racing Motorcycle Association.  In practice most of their bikes are loud 2 stroke machines from decades ago, that AHRMA members lovingly keep in a restored condition, racing them at AHRMA events.  They hold events across the country, but as a club racing series those events are not well attended.  Instead, it's the racers, their friends and family.

Thad Wolff riding Team Electra's 2010 race bike
Waiting for the start at AHRMA's event
At Barber Motorsports Park

The first instance I know of where an electric motorcycle raced at an AHRMA event came in October 2010.  Team Electra, the brain-child of Brian Richardson, had raced in the 2010 and 2011 TTXGP seasons with a Norton Featherbed motorcycle from the 1950's that had been converted to electric.  At the end of the 2010 season, the team had a chance to go to Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham Alabama for an AHRMA event. 

After going through qualifying races, AHRMA decided their best fit was the GP-350 class.  During the race, rider Thad Wolff, lapped the whole of the GP-350 riders and was working on lapping the riders in the next faster class.  (AHRMA routinely runs multiple classes at the same time)

That was the first known instance of an electric motorcycle entering a gas motorcycle race, competing for points, and winning.

Lightning Motorcycles brought two bikes
to the 2011 TTXGP World Final

AHRMA then hosted the TTXGP North American finals events for the 2011 and 2012 seasons.  That occurred both years at Miller Motorsports Park outside of Salt Lake City.

The 2011 TTXGP final featured one of the more interesting line-ups in electric motorcycle racing history, so far.   It came a little over a month following the 2011 TTXGP/e-Power race at Laguna Seca during which Mission Motors beat the pants off both MotoCzysz and Lightning Motorcycles, setting a lap speed record that still stands today.  The line-up at Miller featured MotoCzysz, Lightning, Brammo, Team Electra, and Proto Moto (Ely Schless).  MotoCzysz won the race, beating Lightning by 30 seconds.

The 2012 TTXGP final (and this) had a rather different line-up, featuring Brammo, Virginia Tech, and several bikes from Zero Motorcycles.  By this time Eric Bostrom had joined the Brammo line-up and had raced with them in a couple events.

The 2012 season was the first year in which Zero Motorcycle's bikes were credible enough for racing in the TTXGP.  They'd raced all year with a fleet of four bikes and an ever-changing roster of riders.

The 2012 season was a turning point in electric motorcycle racing, because the field to be dominated by Brammo, with prototype high-end bikes, and Zero Motorcycles, with manufactured bikes close to 250cc performance levels.  In 2010 and 2012 the field was dominated by prototype bikes or home-built conversions.  With the 2012 season, factory prototypes and manufactured bikes became the norm.

The 2012 TTXGP World Final, held during the AHRMA weekend at Daytona International Speedway, featured the same line-up as the North American final (Brammo, Virginia Tech, and Zero Motorcycles) plus Catavolt came all the way from Australia to race. 

The most amazing part of that event was the performance of the two Brammo bikes.  Eric Bostrom and team-mate Steve Atlas both were hitting 170 miles/hr in race conditions.  Just two years previously, Lightning Motorcycles had set the electric motorcycle land speed record at 176 miles/hr (which they surpassed with a 215 miles/hr record in 2011).  But there they were, on a race track, rather than a straight line track like is used in land speed racing, hitting nearly the same speed, in race conditions.

This event turned out to be Steve Atlas' last time racing with Brammo.

For the 2013 season, the TTXGP no longer existed, and the new series, eRoadRacing World Cup, had to operate under different conditions.  Namely, they could only hold races at FIM homologated race tracks, resulting in only four events this year all of which came during MotoGP weekends.  That meant no AHRMA/TTXGP events in 2013.

What all this means is that AHRMA is already familiar with the electric motorcycle scene.  They know who we are, and how to deal with us.

Because AHRMA events are quiet little affairs, we'll be missing out on something the TTXGP originally sought -- exposure before large audiences.  The TTXGP's first event, 2009 at the Isle of Man, was on one of the largest stages one could imagine, TT Week.  During the 2010 season the TTXGP was able to race at AMA events, in front of large audiences.  But something happened beginning with the 2011 season, and TTXGP was no longer able to race at AMA events and instead ended up at less attended club racing events.

By working with the AHRMA this new series won't be in front of large audiences.  But maybe the sport is too young for what the large audience events demand.  They're expecting 600cc superbike or MotoGP speeds, and the number of electric motorcycles that can hit such speeds are, well, extremely rare.  Namely, MotoCzysz's two bikes, the Mission Motors 2011 bike, Lightning's two bikes, Brammo's two bikes, and maybe bikes from Meunch or Zongshen.  Everyone else has speeds closer to the 250cc-450cc classes.

The other requirement for large audience events is enough awareness that fans will pay for tickets to see them race.  Do enough people know about electric motorcycle racing to form a large enough fan base?  I don't think so. 

I suspect that racing at AHRMA events could give the electric motorcycle racing sport time to mature a bit before trying again to break into the big time.  Except that the eRoadRacing organization will presumably make another go of a racing season in 2014.  What will eRoadRacing's plans be?  And how will it overlap with this new series?   Will the new series even be able to get off the ground?  Lots of questions remain.