Wow! What a great weekend of racing with the AHRMA and eMotoRacing 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 one of the next couple of races. I'll see if I can convince him to contribute here. 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 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 RR prototype back in 2011. 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.
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.
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.
