Brammo RR gets a major overhaul...

[Deadly Silent Ninja]

Update from http://esbk.co/:

UPDATE:  I just got word that one of the MotoCzysz packs caught fire after qualifying.  They doused it with water for about an hour and then went home.  How no one bothered to mention this last night I don’t know.  This would be one of the issues with the TTXGP series, Twitter, and me trying to cover it from a remote location.

[protomech]

News update from electricracenews.com:

At the end of the Qualifying, the bike ridden by Christopher Ancien had an issue that I did not directly witness.  I've talked with Michael Czysz to get clarification, and I've watched a video taken by an onlooker.

What happened is that in the pits, a cloud of smoke engulfed the bike and the pit crew pushed the bike to the side and poured water on the battery pack to cool it down.  As a result the MotoCzysz team has pulled out of this weekends'  TTXGP race.

What happened is the bike was set up with a battery pack meant for the Isle of Man.  This means building the pack from "Energy Cells" that support a lower C rate than the "Power Cells" they'd use for a TTXGP race.  The difference is that the Isle of Man, at 38 miles distance, is longer in length than the TTXGP races.  This means for a TTXGP race they can run with higher C rate cells to run at higher speeds, whereas for the Isle of Man they need a lower C rate allowing for more total kilowatt-hours to make the full length of the race.

Because the pack supports a lower C rate, and because Ancien ran more laps than did Michael, the pack was stressed more.  The pack got hotter (while Michael's pack stayed within the target temperature) and got close to the temperature that would trigger a thermal runaway.  Meaning the bike nearly caught fire.

[Gavin]

Hopefully they get it all dialed in for next race...good looking bike (though i liked last years better) and fast.

I wish they had raced the second bike that didn't start smoking and had to be hosed down. But I know that they do have an investment to maintain. Still they walked away from points...Dial the bike back, take your second place points and get a nice lead point wise for the third race...

Last race Brammo took their lumps and moved forward and won today.

Looks like MotoCzysz might take a few lumps this time, but I gather they too will move forward and get going for the next race.

Gavin

[protomech]

Last race Brammo took their lumps and moved forward and won today.

Steve Atlas took more than a few lumps. Glad to see he's back out and racing.

[Gavin]

Why yes, yes he did...

Back on the horse, and with a win...

It I had wrecked like he did I would still be curled in a fetal position hitting the "more morphine NOW" button over and over...

Gavin

[ttxgpfan]

Yeah, I screwed the pooch and did not confirm my source.  The batteries never caught fire, but I am sure by now you all have seen the videos of the one bike smoking after practice.

@Ninja, There was streaming and timing, and if you had read my blog and twitter feed you'd have known that.   I would be more than happy to attend every race weekend and do a live radio broadcast (although I'm not sure how keen some teams would be about it, lol).  But I would need about $1000 every weekend for travel, room, food, and track access.  And then, I have looked into live radio over the internet, and it looks expensive, really expensive.  Also, there are issues with broadcast rights and the TTXGP, not to mention how the track feels.  There's more money I suspect.  My blog only gets 2000 hits a month.  You can't really attract any advertising dollars with only 2000 hits.  And, I am pretty sure it would be horrible.  It's simply not popular enough yet.  TTXGP did have videos from qualifying up pretty quick though.

@Gavin.  I know how you feel.