Lightning Motorcycles sets AMA/FIM electric motorcycle land speed record

Yesterday I reported on the Bonneville land speed racing last week, saying that Lightning Motorcycles had probably set a new record.  I've now talked with Richard Hatfield, and learned that they did set an official AMA and FIM land speed record for electric motorcycles, however they didn't get to beat their personal best speed from two years ago.  The new AMA/FIM electric motorcycle land speed record is 203 miles/hr. 

The racing event was cut short by a rainstorm that Richard described as the worst storm he'd ever seen.  That meant they could plausibly have gotten a higher speed if they'd been able to take a few more runs.

I didn't get a listing of all the runs Lightning did.  Richard said they set the FIM record first.  Then, because the FIM and AMA rules for fairings are different, they had to modify the fairing before setting the AMA record.  The difference is in the rear, where they had to expose the entire rear wheel from the axle rearwards.   Look at the picture above, and ponder how the tail would be different with a notch cut out of it.

The AMA and FIM record now stands at slightly above 203 miles/hr, getting slightly above 203 miles/hr in both directions.

For a couple days they had the 3rd fastest motorcycle overall at the event.

Two years ago they'd gone to Bonneville for an event sponsored by the Southern California Timing Associated and set a record of 215 miles/hr, and a top speed of 217 miles/hr.   While that was amazing, the SCTA events are not sanctioned by the AMA or FIM and the record was not recorded in the official record book.  Two weeks later Chip Yates did so setting the AMA/FIM electric motorcycle land speed records at just below 200 miles/hr.

Lightning Motorcycles may have set a record at Bonneville

KillaCycle Racing wasn't the only electric motorcycle team at Bonneville this week.  Lightning Motorcycles was there too, but they didn't post as much on Facebook and I haven't had a chance to talk with them.

On Aug 26 they posted: "We're super excited to say that today, on the legendary Bonneville salt flats, we've claimed the first SOLAR land speed record! Hearty shout-out to SMA America for all the support, and more to come soon!"

 What this shows is their race bike, but with the land speed record fairing.  They've experimented with several fairings over the years and the idea is to cut wind resistance.  Notice how this one has a leg shaped cut-out that's obviously so the rider can easily mount and dismount the bike as needed.

The solar panels are shown deployed in the first picture, and folded up in the second.  They're mounted in aluminum frames on top of the Sprinter van, that have gas struts to hold the panels in place.  When parked somewhere they deploy the panels, which then charge a 35 kilowatt-hour battery pack mounted inside the van.  Also in the van is a pair of 6 kilowatt SMA inverters.  The inverters are powerful enough to run high end Manzanita chargers letting them quick charge the bikes in under an hour.  Plus it powers all the tools they need on-site.

They didn't post any specifics about speeds etc.  I don't know what they mean by "solar land speed record" as I doubt the event organizers care about the source of the electrons that powered the bike.

The land speed record for this sort of bike is held by Lightning Motorcycles - 215 miles/hr in 2011.

Lightning did post this nice picture of conditions after the rain storm that canceled racing for the week.  Whatever they could have achieved this week got cut short by the rain storm.

KillaCycle Racing sets electric streamlined sidecar speed record at Bonneville - around 213 miles/hr

It's land speed racing time at the Bonneville Salt Flats and I see from Facebook that both Lightning Motorcycles and KillaCycle racing were there.  In this post I'll cover what KillaCycle posted on Facebook.  The big takeaway is that they made it into the 201+ miles/hr club, it's not clear if they got enough verification that they'll have an official record because a rain storm came in and turned the salt into a lake.

View from the cockpit

On Aug 25, they were doing a shakedown run and hit over 170 miles/hr - meaning to hit maybe 150 miles/hr instead. 

This is what the KillaJoule looks like this year.  Looks a lot like last year but I think that's because the outer skin is the same.  I've been following their Facebook postings all year and know they've rebuilt quite a bit of stuff under the skin including new batteries etc.  I see that A123 Systems is still a sponsor.

On Day 2 they made one run at 183 miles per hour, then went for a record run.  The outbound run they hit over 200 miles/hr, and on the return run hit 191 miles/hr for an average of 196.168 miles/hr.  At that point the controller was set to supply only 100 horsepower out of the 400 horsepower available.

On Day 3 they bumped the power up, they had an outbound run at 210. 844 mph and backup of 213.250 gave a new record of 212.047 mph (341.2 km/h). They were looking at changing gearing to see if they could go faster.  However, a little later they posted that rain had moved in canceling all the runs that day.

The next day they did a run at 214 miles/hr but then rain moved in for real and they had to skedaddle from the salt.  Because the previous days runs were close enough to this one, that means they can use one of those runs as the backup for this run.  If I understand the rules right that means they'll have made a record somewhere above the 212.047 miles/hr average from the day before.

For their troubles they get to own this spiffy new hat.

Camaraderie in the Pits at eRoadRacing Indianapolis - Kenyon Kluge's race report

Kenyon Kluge at Laguna Seca

Yesterday I referenced & summarized a race report from Brian Wismann - today it's Kenyon Kluge's turn.  Kenyon took 3rd place behind the Empulse RR's in Sunday's eRoadRacing race event in Indianapolis.  This makes him top dawg in the unofficial eSuperSport division for two races in a row.

Yesterday he wrote a Facebook posting summarizing the weekend, from his perspective. As for race strategy he described it as "my experience on the Playstation MotoGP game" and "my plan was to twist the throttle as hard as I could from the start and see if I could go faster than everyone else." As he said it - "I know, brilliant right!" (grin)

What can we say, the strategy worked didn't it? 

As for the race, he said that Ted Rich took the lead from the start but on the front straight during the first lap Kenyon "lined Ted up and drafted past."  After that Kenyon simply put in consistent lap times, kept lengthening his lead, avoided getting lapped by the Empulse RR riders, and made it into 3rd place.

What Kenyon closed with by telling of discussion reminding me much of something I've been missing from the 2010 TTXGP season. 

All the riders there at Indy spent a good portion of the weekend talking amongst ourselves about how we can better define, promote, and nurture our sport and grow it into something that can support the riders, thrill the fans, and make the manufacturers want to be a part of it.

I want to congratulate the Brammo team on their first place, Shane Turpin, second place Eric Bostrom, and Shelina who dropped a lot of time from her qualifying session to take 5th place. I was thrilled to have so many honest and productive conversations with the Brammo team and felt like there was more camaraderie at this race amongst all the teams than I have seen at any other race. I hope and look forward to this being the norm and to continue to grow our relationships in the future because I love the people in racing as much as I love the racing itself. So to everyone that was a part of this weekend, THANKS! And till I see you next time, keep the rubber side down.

This sort of attitude was prevalent during the 2010 season, because that year each race felt like huge cooperation between all the members of all the teams.  During the 2010 season, everyone was helping everyone else and there was a palpable feeling of camaraderie.  At least that's how it felt to me, the non-racer who was at every event trying to be a journalist telling the story.

Starting with the 2011 season it was harder to feel that camaraderie.  But, post-race at Laguna Seca it was there, and I'm glad it was there in Indianapolis.  Makes me wish to have been there.

As I wrote yesterday, the real competition eRoadRacing faces is the gas bike racing scene.  

The common goal among all eRoadRacing teams (or, for that matter, any form of electric racing) has to be, at this stage of the game, the mutual effort to publicize what's going on and gain the interest of the fans.

We who have been to these races know that it doesn't matter whether the bike is gas or electrically powered, it's still exciting racing to see riders skillfully duking it out with other riders.  We know that, therefore, there is no longer a need to burn irreplacable gasoline to have an exciting race.  But there's a whole slew of gas bike racers and gas bike racing fans who have to be convinced of these plain obvious facts.

May the day come soon when Indianapolis Speedway has to change its moniker away from Gasoline Alley to something else.

from Facebook

To get there means rearranging the preferences of millions of people through demonstrating the possibilities of different propulsion systems.

Brammo's Wismann explained some factors at Indianapolis prior to the race

From Facebook

Just before Sunday's eRoadRacing race in Indianapolis, Brian Wismann posted a long "here's the latest from Team Brammo" on Facebook that gave some interesting details.

First and most heartening is that the Brammo paddock had a constant stream of visitors "since Friday" which is typically a slow day.  As Brian said, the real competition is the gas powered bikes, the MotoGP, Moto2 and Vance & Hines XR1200 series all of which were also racing that weekend.  I hope Brian agrees with me in saying that while this season has been a competition between Brammo and Zero (thanks to other teams who didn't show up) the real competition is to win the hearts and minds of the gas bike riders.

Second is the gearing required for Indianapolis. Their first thought was to gear the bikes for the long straight in the front, but then the bikes weren't good for the "VERY tight and technical infield section of the course".  A gearing change on Saturday worked really well for Eric, but made a negative impact on Shane.  For the race they reverted the setup on Shane's bike to what they'd used on Friday.  Given the margin by which Shane beat Eric on Sunday, that was a good choice for him. 

During last weekend they'd also switched cell suppliers. This is something Brian had told me about at Laguna Seca, but he didn't want to name the supplier. Shane's bike crapped out during the Laguna Seca race, and Brian is using that as proof the old "RR packs were getting tired and were in dire need of replacement cells". The new battery cell sponsor and supplier is Farasis Energy, of Hayward California. Brian described them as "fantastic cells that are proving to be just the ticket for dealing with these long straights at Indy" and that the "capacity at high C-rates is awesome!"

Let's explain the jargon a bit.


In batteries "C" is a charge or discharge rate where it is fully charged or fully discharged in one hour.  When we say a battery is "10 amp-hours" that means either a discharge rate of 1 amp for 10 hours, or a discharge rate of 10 amps for one hour, or maybe a discharge rate of 2 amps for 5 hours.  The problem with that is that batteries behave differently at high discharge rates than they do at low discharge rates.  Usually you can get more amp-hours out of a battery at low discharge rates, than you get out at a high discharge rate.

The sort of behavior that would make me say "capacity at high C-rates is awesome" would be for the battery pack to maintain its voltage at high discharge rate, and to provide all the amp-hours you need at a high discharge rate.

For example - to pull some numbers out of thin air that I have no proof that any of these numbers are accurate ...

I believe the Empulse RR battery pack voltage is 360 volts nominal.  To run at 150 kilowatts at that voltage means a 416 amp discharge rate.  If their pack is 15 kilowatt-hours, at 360 volts means it's a  40 amp-hour pack.  For a 40 amp-hour pack, a 400+ amp discharge is at a 10C rate.  That's a very high discharge rate.

Again, these aren't the actual numbers for the Empulse RR's but they're close.

Jeremiah Johnson (64)
Ted Rich (28)
Shelina Moreda (38?)
Clearly closely battling for 4th/5th/6th places
from Facebook

As for Shelina Moreda and her results with the Empulse TTX. He said they made some big changes for the qualifying round on Saturday, including giving it a new fairing. Brian said that while she did run faster, it "still wasn't enough to improve her position against the competition." In this case "competition" means the Zero S's at the race. Brian went on to say "At this point, we're hoping their performance is not be sustainable over the race distance." But, of course that didn't turn out to be the case.

As I discussed in Monday's posting, there is more to this equation than who has the best bike. There's also a question of rider skill. But weighing between Kenyon Kluge, Jeremiah Johnson, Shelina Moreda, and Ted Rich, I'm not sure that set of results are due to rider skill as the primary determining factor. Yes, Moreda had just raced in the Vance & Hines XR1200 Harley race just before the eRoadRacing event, and there's a case to be made for rider fatigue. But at Laguna Seca, I think if Moreda and Rich hadn't crashed out in the first lap the results might have been similar to what they were in Indianapolis.

The practice rounds at Laguna Seca, the practice rounds at Indianapolis, and the race results in Indianapolis, all had Moreda on her Empulse TTX finishing behind the Zero's.   There is a trend here, and it doesn't say good things about the Empulse TTX.

Zero S outperforming Empulse TTX for less money, and a deep dive into motor cooling issues

It's way cool that the 2013 electric motorcycle racing season (eRoadRacing World Cup) is featuring manufactured bikes, where in previous years the majority of bikes were prototype bikes.  There are two manufactured bikes, Brammo's Empulse TTX and Zero S, in existence with race-ready performance.  Well, "race ready" so long as you're happy with 250-400cc levels of performance.  It's been pleasing to see these two bikes so well matched, and interesting to see the Zero's edging out the TTX's.

Some data has been posted since the race implying that, if Zero and Brammo were to solve an overheating issue present in both bikes, that the power level could be turned up in the controller and these stock production bikes could be so much faster.  See an earlier post for some thoughts on the potential business model for manufacturing high end, race ready, electric motorcycles.  Could Zero and/or Brammo develop a better cooling system for the controller/motor in the 2014 Zero S or 2014 Empulse TTX and jump the power level way up?

UPDATE: This post stirred up a bit of controversy over on Facebook in the Electric Racing group.   Basically, the results I discuss below should be taken with a grain of salt because the results have a lot to do with rider skill and bike setup as well as how efficient or powerful the bike is.  It's not all up to whether the motor can run at so many kilowatts for so long without overheating.  Put a good rider on a not-so-powerful bike and they can run rings around an inexperienced rider on a powerful bike.  But my contention is that rider skill and bike setup is not the entire story either ...

UPDATE: Travis Gintz posted an insightful comment on Facebook.  The Zero S is lighter than the Empulse TTX which the riders can use to their advantage.  The race reports I read talked about the Zero's beating Moreda in the technical section on the back of the track, while Moreda's more powerful bike would get ahead of them on the long front straight.  Gintz went on to say that, yes, the Empulse R/TTX is more expensive, but that it comes with Brembo brakes, etc, and that the TTX includes a year worth of racing fees with eRoadRacing and track-side support from Brammo.

What's the business model for manufacturing high end electric superbikes competitive with the gas bikes? - See more at: http://www.electricracenews.com/2013/07/whats-business-model-for-manufacturing.html#sthash.rRG4iMUS.dpuf

What's the business model for manufacturing high end electric superbikes competitive with the gas bikes? - See more at: http://www.electricracenews.com/2013/07/whats-business-model-for-manufacturing.html#sthash.rRG4iMUS.dpuf

What's the business model for manufacturing high end electric superbikes competitive with the gas bikes? - See more at: http://www.electricracenews.com/2013/07/whats-business-model-for-manufacturing.html#sthash.rRG4iMUS.dpuf

Elaine Carpenter - wife of Ted Rich who is riding with Zero this year in both eRoadRacing and Pikes Peak - rode Brandon Nozaki-Miller's bike at Indianapolis while Brandon was recovering from injuries.  She posted this picture annotating the starting grid with an interesting interpretation

Elaine Carpenter SBKTraining.com - from Facebook

The $200k prototype bikes are the Brammo Empulse RR's which can't be beat by the rest of the field who showed up.  For the Empulse RR's to face actual competition would require certain other teams (cough cough) to show up and give them a run for their money.

But in the real race, the race between the eSuperStock bikes, the $15,000 Zero S's qualified ahead of the two $30,000 Empulse TTX's.  Okay, these are $15k S's with a $2000 controller mod, right?  Still a lot cheaper than the TTX, and that was Elaine Carpenter's point.

Where it counted, the race results, came out slightly different than the starting grid, but still along those lines.

Largely speaking the Zero S's beat the Empulse TTX's in the race.  Shelina Moreda did find some extra oomph to place a little higher than during qualifying.

Arthur Kowitz had this to say on a facebook posting:  Arthur Kowitz upon reading my data from the race, it was revealed that my bikes electronics turned motor power down about 40% to protect the motor from a perceived overheat situation

Somehow the liquid cooling on the TTX is not enough for race conditions, where the duct-augmented air cooling on the Zero S's is enough.  For the record, I was told at Laguna Seca that while the Zero S's all had Gen4 Size6 controllers the power levels were turned way down to prevent overheating as well.  

This implies that if Brammo and Zero can solve cooling on their respective bikes, that these production bikes could be much more powerful than the 250-450cc range ...?

Turpin wins eRoadRacing Indianapolis - Kluge wins in eSuperStock category

Shane Turpin - from Facebook

Shane Turpin (Brammo Empulse RR) won overall in today's eRoadRacing World Cup race at Indianapolis Speedway, with Kenyon Kluge (Zero S) winning the eSuperStock category.  This was the first electric vehicle race held at the Indianapolis Speedway, a track that has the nickname "Gasoline Alley", making it a historic occasion.  May there be so many electric vehicles racing there in the future that they have to think up a new nickname, but let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.

Eric Bostron - from Facebook

It's of course not a surprise that Shane Turpin and Eric Bostrom took 1st and 2nd, they have no real competition other than between themselves.  Turpin had a total time of 15:18.967, and Bostrom came in 14 seconds behind him at 15:32.700.  Both improved their best lap times by about a second.  In both cases their lap times slowed during the course of the race - Turpin started with 1:53.412 lap time and ended with 1:56.584 lap time, for example, and Bostrom did about the same.

The real racing action was between Kenyon Kluge, Jeremiah Johnson, Shelina Moreda and Ted Rich.  All four had very similar lap times throughout the race.  Because Kluge was not lapped by Turpin and Bostrom, while the other three were, he ran for an extra lap and had a total race time of 17:30.962, while taking 3rd place overall and 2:08.228 best lap time.

In 4th place overall was Jeremiah Johnson, 15:21.611 total time and 2:09.698 best lap time.  In 5th place overall was Shelina Moreda, 15:24.708 total time and 2:10.326 best lap time.  In 6th place overall was Ted Rich, 15:25.143 total time and 2:09.275 best lap time.

Of those four, Kluge, Johnson and Rich were riding 2013 Zero S's while Shelina Moreda was riding a Brammo Empulse TTX.  If the Zero S's are still configured as they were at Laguna Seca, all but Ted Rich's have been upgraded to a SEVCON Gen 4 Size 6 controller giving a higher overall power.  Another modification is added ducting for cooling.  At Laguna Seca, Ted Rich had a box surrounding the controller into which he put ice to cool it before the race.

The Zero S's and Empulse TTX's are racing in an unofficial division called eSuperStock.  There is some discussion around whether the modifications render the bike unfit for what can rightfully be called eSuperStock, or not.  I'm just documenting what I know and am trying to not pass judgement.  However as we see in the quotes below, Kenyon Kluge makes an excellent point.

Namely, with the 2013 model year it's now possible to buy a bike from the factory, make a few modifications that add up to about $1000 expenditure, and have a race-worthy bike.   The results show it's possible not just with Zero but Brammo's Empulse TTX as well.  This is a big step forward for electric motorcycles.

SHANE TURPIN (No. 14 Icon Brammo Brammo Empulse RR, winner): “I got a little bit of a lead, and all I could think about was, ”Man, just keep it, maintain and keep it steady,’ and I kept looking over my shoulder to see where (runner-up Eric Bostrom) was. I just wanted to finish this time. Laguna Seca kind of bit me, and the bike shut off. We maintained a good lead and brought it home. It was very exciting. I was hammer down. All of us are like that. We just want to win. The bottom line with the Brammo team is incredible. Anything I ask them to do – bike, setup. anything – they fix it. We have just been jelling very well, and obviously it shows.”

ERIC BOSTROM (No. 32 Icon Brammo Brammo Empulse RR, second): “Shane (Turpin) showed up fast, and neither of us had a real lot of laps around this track. The bike was really fast, 160-plus (mph) on the front straight. I got through the turns well, but I wasn’t able to get comfortable here. We took a little gamble in our setup for the race. Shane had us beat from the time we hit the asphalt. The team did a fantastic job; we didn’t have a hiccup all week long.” (About historical impact of race): “This is the place that bears the name Gasoline Alley, so it’s kind of ironic that we’re running around on batteries. It’s an incredible place for this team to be here at such a famous circuit and perform in front of the same crowd that they have for MotoGP and race cars here. It was incredible. My first lap down the front straight, I was just filled with emotion: Wow! I’m racing in the king’s quarters.”

KENYON KLUGE (No. 96 K Squared Racing Zero S, third): “I was third place overall but first place in the eSuperStock division. All the other bikes (except first and second place) out here were stock bikes with minimal changes, just bodywork, throw $1,000 into it after taking it off the showroom floor. We think it is really historic to be able to race a bike that the average buyer could go out and buy and do the same times we’re doing. This was my first time here at the course, so I had to learn it. It was a little tricky, some of the tight switchbacks combined with the long straightaway. I think I got into the flow of it in the race.”

Shane Turpin taking the win - Facebook eRoadRacing

The line-up before the race
from Facebook

Elaine Carpenter - from Facebook