Yeah, after the massive take down at 2:35 on the helmet cam, well the Brammo rider was either hurt or riding scared. I didn't see him as "blocking" at the end as much as riding very cautious and even at one point slowing down and waving trevor to pass him....basically saying, "hey you crazy mo-fo, you almost killed me back there...I want you in front of me from now on"...which was the right call as Trevor took himself out with another big crash right before the finish and the Brammo rider went around him.
That said, the T-bone at the start was mostly the Brammo riders fault...and that might of ticked off Trevor leading to the 2:35 take down...or it could have just been an accident.
The T-bone was also partly the track lay out fault too...horrible set up....I only watched a few races on the u-stream, but every race had crashes either in the tunnel turn or in the turn onto the track...massive crashes before even hitting the actual race course inside the arena is just bad layout. To avoid the t-bone the Brammo rider would have had to come to a complete stop and let 3 riders pass...and he should have done that...but what racer wants to completely stop before even entering the track and let other riders get in front? Still he should have. So bad layout and driver error.
The up side of the T-bone is that we got to see the Brammo bike from Trevor's helmet cam (all the videos linked to are from Zero, so they focus, rightly so, on Zero riders and you really don't get any know idea how the Brammo bike rides from the videos except the helmet cam video).
We see that the Brammo and the Zero are pretty even in speed. We see that the Zero is maybe just a bit faster. Which makes sense. They have been making their bikes longer, raced them much much more and their riders have had a lot of time on their bikes. Zero has really worked long and hard on their bikes and it shows. They are nice off road electric bikes....heck they are really nice off road bikes period.
It takes Trevor about 1 1/2 minutes to catch the Brammo rider and then he really takes the Brammo rider out HARD. You see the Brammo rider just laid out on the track and we never see him ride hard again after that.
Now Brammo does need to make a decision. I don't know the Brammo rider. I don't know the Zero rider. I don't know just how good they are.
But if Brammo likes their rider and he is a good rider and was riding hurt at the end, well I might use him again. But if he was riding scared at the end, well you can't ride these type of rides scared...it is just dangerous to everybody. That said, hell I couldn't ride that track even with nobody else on the track. I would crash 18 times in each lap while going 5 mph. So I'm not downing the Brammo rider or the Zero rider...these races are set up for crashes and the riders have to go all out and be right on the edge of out of control...and I admire them and know I could never ever ride like them.
Second point...does Brammo do this race again? I wouldn't unless there was a change or two. Electric bike race only or all bikes leave at the same time. With these races you are much safer and much more likely to do well if you get the lead. Starting out 10 seconds behind the gas bikes almost guarantee that you will A) not win and B) will be in the middle of a ton of riders who will crash into you. So either all electric race or all take off at the same time....also have the start not have the crazy 120 degree turn to get onto the track that basically ensures that people get t-boned.
Still I'm sure it was a good learning experience for Brammo. An expensive, painful learning experience.
I wish Quantya had been there as they are last years electric champ...but it looks like they made a good call by not going.
Gavin
