Bit of a miss from Motorcycle.com article on last weekend's race

[Brammofan]

http://blog.motorcycle.com/2013/05/07/motorcycle-news/a-closer-look-at-brammos-performance-during-this-weekends-afm-races/#comment-354240

The facts are that while the Lightning bike (in 2012) did have a faster lap than either of the Brammo bikes this year, the total race time of both of the Brammo bikes was less than the total race time of the Lightning bike.

[protomech]

The Lightning bike is hugely fast when it's turned loose at a qualifying pace. They do still have to meter out power at race pace.

2 seconds faster per lap at race pace and nearly 70 seconds faster for 8 laps is a pretty huge step up, though they correctly point out that Barnes may not have been pushing hard with no competition in the race. I'd love to see the race videos, but the Brammo bikes also had to contend with significant race traffic, a huge difference vs the TTXGP laps which sometimes resemble parade laps with the stratified classes.

I don't believe Brammo had a chance to get a "best effort" lap time in 2012, which motorcycle.com appears to have missed. Both Atlas and Rapp wrecked very early into their practice sessions. The 2013 Empulse RR is definitely faster, but I don't think we'll have a good feel for how much faster until later this year.

[flar]

I'm not an avid follower of the racing news, but Brammo did win the championship and that is worth something.  I'm guessing that they finished (or showed up for) more races than the allegedly faster "qualifying" bikes.  How much of that is due to designing to finish the race rather than designing to make an impressive one trick pony?

I'm sure any team could put a bike on the grid that beat everyone to the first corner, and then promptly shut down just out of sight due to thermal issues or lack of electrons.  The fans would still be talking about how impressed they were as the bike zoomed past the entire grid and likely not give a second thought about not having seen the bike again.

[protomech]

Brammo has yet to beat Lightning, Mission, or MotoCzysz on the track. Both in 2011 and in 2012, Brammo has either placed lower than those bikes or those bikes failed to show up or start.

Brammo won both in 2011 and 2012 essentially by showing up and competing with a (mostly) sorted bike. Lightning is the only other competitor that's made a serious go at fielding a GP-class bike and racing the full championship; in 2011 Lightning had technical issues that caused them to DNS in the first race, and in 2012 Lightning missed a couple of races due to IOM TT. Additionally, at Infineon/Sonoma 2012, Lightning brought two bikes, each of which experienced a technical difficulty in one of the races causing a DNF. Brammo bowed out after crashing their bike twice in practice. Amusingly, three riders on stock 2012 Zeros carried the day against a field of scratch GP efforts .. and cost Lightning points that could have decided the championship in their favor.

None of this is a slam on Brammo or their competitors - they all have built remarkable bikes. We just haven't seen consistent, serious competition on the grid. As a spectator, I hope we'll see more competition this year. Both Brammo and Lightning are stronger than ever. VT's BOLT may prove to be shockingly fast. Maybe even MotoCzysz will compete..

[BrammoBrian]

This is exactly why we've taken our fight to the gas bikes.  We need consistent competition in order to continue to improve the technology.  I don't think there's much, if any, performance gap between these top teams, and if we could actually get them all together to race, the rest of the world would see that too... and therein lies the rub... I believe that the other teams are so dependent on winning to fund their activities that they'd rather withdraw from a race than risk losing.  Also... Isle of Man in June is no excuse for missing Miller and Daytona last year.   They made it to Laguna, didn't they?  The points Zero took at Sonoma may have reduced Lightning's take, but remember that Brammo walked away (barely... ha!) with no points.  At any race up to Daytona, they could've come out and competed for the championship.  Hell... at Portland last year, Czysz could've started a championship run.  Oh well, we can only race who shows up - and that has always been step one of Racing: To finish first, first you have to finish.   

[protomech]

Okay. Jogging my memory..

Schedule of events last year:

May 4-6 Infineon TTXGP - Brammo and Lightning both show, Brammo withdraws after two wrecks and Lightning competes in both heats. Both Lightning bikes DNF in one heat. Zero ESS wins.

June 4-6 TT Zero IOM - MotoCzysz and Lightning show up, Lightning's battery supplier is extremely delayed (per esbk.co's interview) and Lightning does not compete.

June 23-24 PIR TTXGP - Brammo shows up. MotoCzysz shows up with their IOM energy packs, withdraws after a thermal event. Lightning is a no-show. Brammo wins.

August 31 - Sept 2 Miller TTXGP - Brammo shows up, wins.

Sept 9 Le Mans TTXGP Europe - Lightning shows up, wins.

October 29-31 Daytona - Brammo shows up, wins. Lightning is a no-show.

November 13 - Lightning sets local LSR at El Mirage dry lakebed

The two week gap between IOM and PIR does seem to be pretty long. MotoCzysz though still has their IOM packs on, and they're based in Portland .. perhaps Lightning was still sorting out issues with their battery.

Missing Miller was due to electing to go race at Le Mans instead. I don't follow Mr. Hatfield's logic - Le Mans is pretty awesome, but given a choice I'd rather he compete in the US championships. I guess he didn't consult me.

Guessing by the time Daytona rolled around Lightning had given up on TTXGP for 2012. Perhaps El Mirage and Le Mans helps them get sponsorship dollars. If that's what they've gotta do to keep going then so be it.. certainly I'm glad I don't have to make those calls.

[ttxgpfan]

I am quite certain I mentioned during my coverage of the weekend that both Brammo bikes got under Lightning's in race lap times.  Eric got within one second of Lightning's lap times.  I heard from one of the college teams that their rider wondered if the track was as "rubbered in" as it was last year.  Either way Brian and I talk about this in depth (starts at about 45 minutes or so):  http://esbk.co/2013/05/10/esbk-studios-special-post-race-with-jeff-smith-of-sri-and-then-brian-wismann-of-brammo/