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[BrammoBrian]

For those that missed it... What a great weekend of racing with the AHRMA and www.eMotoRacing.com crew! We've done a lot of racing over the past several years and I must admit that this was one of the most fun couple of days of racing we've had.  It was awesome to watch 6 electric bikes (5 Brammo Empulses, 1 Zero S) battle with each other and the gas bikes throughout the race.

Here's a great on-board video of Friday's race from Ricky Orlando's Empulse R:

Shelina Moreda rode my personal Empulse R (with her signature pink body panels) to a hard fought 3rd place finish on Friday.  This was a great "shake down" and inaugural race for the bike as I've sold it to a racer in Florida who intends to race it with AHRMA beginning with the Road America round in June. Shelina ran a 2:05.7 lap in the race on a nearly stock production bike and Ricky Orlando managed a 2:06.3 on lap 6. Very impressive and competitive! 

The 650+ ft-lbs of rear wheel torque of the Empulse R in 1st gear is a valuable weapon in an 8-lap "sprint" race coming off the start line!  Eric was shifting down to 2nd to get a good drive out of the 2 slowest corners on the track, so the Empulse gearboxes were getting a good workout at this track!

Eric ended the 2 day event with 2 wins after clearing off at the front on our factory TTX bike.   He also managed to finish 5th overall on Thursday and 4th on Friday among the 19 bikes on the grid, racing with Sound of Thunder twins and Next Gen Superbikes. His consistent laps of 1:57.9 - 1:59.06 on Friday would have had him challenging (or at least closely tailing) Steve Atlas for the win here on the High Voltage, Direct-Drive RR prototype back in 2011.

Eric had a lonely race, but the gap gave him the clear track needed to focus on his riding and what the bike was doing well (Eric said it was magical through the long left hand "carousel") and what needed further improvement for the future. 

Note the new tail section on the bike - mostly designed to provide a more solid surface to transmit feedback so that Eric could "feel" what the rear tire was doing.  Eric reports that the TTX is now at its best from a performance, balance, and overall riding enjoyment perspective. 

We ran the TTX in a special Spec32 livery for Eric at this race as he also picked up his very own production Spec32 bike for riding around LA.  More on that to follow.  Also... Icon's cooked up some new liveries for the bikes, so expect to see this bike in new colors soon.  I think the new designs are the best yet!  Stay tuned. 

[BrammoBrian]

Dang.  Tough crowd here.   

[Brammofan]

Dang.  Tough crowd here.   

Nah... Just mostly Zero and diy bike guys.
You already know that the Brammofans are on the "other" forum.

[Biff]

His consistent laps of 1:57.9 - 1:59.06 on Friday would have had him challenging (or at least closely tailing) Steve Atlas for the win here on the High Voltage, Direct-Drive RR prototype back in 2011

I think that is the most impressive part of electric motorcycle development right there.  The performance of the race bikes of form a few years ago are available in production now. If that progress keeps on for a few more years the performance of production electric motorcycles will be very attractive to racers and I think these kind of events will have many more entries, and much greater interest from racers.

Thanks Brian for doing awesome stuff, and sharing it with all of our community.

-ryan

[BrammoBrian]

His consistent laps of 1:57.9 - 1:59.06 on Friday would have had him challenging (or at least closely tailing) Steve Atlas for the win here on the High Voltage, Direct-Drive RR prototype back in 2011

I think that is the most impressive part of electric motorcycle development right there.  The performance of the race bikes of form a few years ago are available in production now. If that progress keeps on for a few more years the performance of production electric motorcycles will be very attractive to racers and I think these kind of events will have many more entries, and much greater interest from racers.

Thanks Brian for doing awesome stuff, and sharing it with all of our community.

-ryan

Thanks, Ryan, and I agree!  Even though the racing is not as high profile as it has been in the past from a Marketing perspective, it still allows us the perfect opportunity to continue to push and develop the technology.  Many of the "fixes" found at the track have become innovations or enhancements for our production vehicles.  I get excited just achieving lap times that seemed so far out of reach just a couple of years ago.  This is a key to understanding why we race - We race because it remains the best and toughest proving grounds to put our tech to the test against an incumbent technology that has had 100+ years of development and millions of participants in driving product improvements. 

“The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching.”
― John Wooden   

[roma258]

His consistent laps of 1:57.9 - 1:59.06 on Friday would have had him challenging (or at least closely tailing) Steve Atlas for the win here on the High Voltage, Direct-Drive RR prototype back in 2011

I think that is the most impressive part of electric motorcycle development right there.  The performance of the race bikes of form a few years ago are available in production now. If that progress keeps on for a few more years the performance of production electric motorcycles will be very attractive to racers and I think these kind of events will have many more entries, and much greater interest from racers.

Thanks Brian for doing awesome stuff, and sharing it with all of our community.

-ryan

So is there a reason why there are no Zeros in the eMoto series? Not trying to be snarky, genuinely curious. I would've thought that the Zero SR should be a very competitive platform, and would make for pretty exciting racing against a field of Brammos. Maybe this year?

[MotoRyder]

Was wondering the same thing...and even double-checking the photos for any evidence to be seen.
Sure goes to show that, "Race on Sunday, Sell on Monday," isn't applicable to all forms of motor sports.

[dbsuperbiker]

His consistent laps of 1:57.9 - 1:59.06 on Friday would have had him challenging (or at least closely tailing) Steve Atlas for the win here on the High Voltage, Direct-Drive RR prototype back in 2011

I think that is the most impressive part of electric motorcycle development right there.  The performance of the race bikes of form a few years ago are available in production now. If that progress keeps on for a few more years the performance of production electric motorcycles will be very attractive to racers and I think these kind of events will have many more entries, and much greater interest from racers.

Thanks Brian for doing awesome stuff, and sharing it with all of our community.

-ryan

So is there a reason why there are no Zeros in the eMoto series? Not trying to be snarky, genuinely curious. I would've thought that the Zero SR should be a very competitive platform, and would make for pretty exciting racing against a field of Brammos. Maybe this year?

Arthur of eMotoRacing here. 
We have tried from day 1 to get Zero racers of all levels into our series with only warm responses until now.
Last season there were only a few Zeros,  at Willow Springs, Sonoma, and Barber. They have had their challenges at the track.
We have tried very hard to engage the Zero racers throughout last season and into this one.
It was a bit disappointing that we couldn't get more of them out to contest the Brammos and University built conversions.
Expect several well prepared Zeros at Willow Springs and Sonoma later this month.
Lets line 'em up and race'em!