EV West at the Pikes Peak Hill Climb

Back in June an epic wildfire near Colorado Springs CO broke out just a few miles from Pikes Peak.  The fire forced the evacuation of residents into nearby hotels, and placed a big stress on the local area.  In the face of this the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb team delayed the race until this week.  One of the electric teams, EV West, has posted some updates on their Facebook page showing what they're doing at Pikes Peak.

You can follow their updates at:  http://www.facebook.com/ElectricVehicleWest

From: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=403573836366970&set=a.280395132018175.69535.176252595765763&type=1&theater

This is the Netgain motor, along with an accessory system driven by belts attached to the motor.  Tis runs common accessories such as the air conditioning pumps, power steering pumps, a tachometer, etc.

From: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=407596299298057&set=a.280395132018175.69535.176252595765763&type=1&theater

Loading up the car in a trailer for the trip to Pikes Peak.

And few shot from the qualifying round: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=408719882519032&set=a.280395132018175.69535.176252595765763&type=1&theater

An earlier picture shows the drive train removed from the car.  Notice that this is a different setup than the first picture.   This shows dual motors in a siamese arrangement.

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.

eFXC | TTXGP Australia 2012 DVD will be available soon.

Coming soon - a DVD showcasing the 2012 TTXGP/eFXC season in Australia.

See http://www.evmotorcycle.org/ for more info.

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.