Laguna news

[Brammofan]

This should be the go-to location for photos and info about Brammo's trip to the track.
I'll start it off:
Brian has tweeted:

Final dyno test before the #FIM #ePower / #TTXGP race complete! Everyone's waiting on me to put on decals now...
Jeez... The pressure is relentless! RT @Asphalt_Rubber: @brammodesigner Put them on faster!!!! #FIM #ePower #TTXGP
Finally... Ready to load! Headed for the Laguna round #FIM #ePower / #TTXGP race. http://lockerz.com/s/122091546

[Brammofan]

Odd.   Figured they would be there by now.

Team is on the road! Headed down to #ePower / #TTXGP race at Laguna Seca.

Tweet at 1:56pm Central. 
I guess it took longer to load than we thought.

[Brammofan]

Brian tweets at 2:29pm:
"Slight Detour"
[smg id=273 width=400]

[Brammofan]

"Ready and anxious for the first #ePower / #TTXGP practice at Laguna Seca tomorrow!"
[smg id=274 width=400]

Okay folks.  I'm headed out first thing tomorrow morning so hopefully, I'll be able to update this with some first hand accounts.  Ciao.

[Brammofan]

Okay, so I'm here and the internet connection stinks, but I wanted to report the times from today's practice:
Mission: 1.33.7
Czysz: 1.40.9
Lightning: 1.41.2
Muench: 1.43
Brammo: 1.44
CRP (Brannetti) 1.47
Moto Electra 1.49
CRP (Moreda) 2.00
Proto Moto 2.01
LGN 2.06
K Squared (Zero - Kenyon Kluge) 2.08

Yeah, that Mission bike is a fast one.  About 10 seconds off of the MotoGP lap times.  Wow. 

There's just so much going on here - FIM being dicks to TTXGP, Brammo girls being hot, greeting to all of you (via me) from the Brammo folks  - ie David Harvey (brammo socal) Jennifer Rafiner - BrammoJen, Brian, Danny Watson - the big Brammo Tech guy, Adrian, Aaron Bland, Aaron's dad, etc.

Anyway... I have to get back to the action.  Wish y'all could be here.  I'll try uploading some pictures tonight, when they say that the internet's a bit more reliable.

[oobflyer]

Sweet - Eleven Electric bikes - I'll be there in the morning - can't wait!

[FreepZ]

FIM being dicks to TTXGP

Really? I'm curious to know how. Things like lap times are available on the TTXGP website, but I doubt that they are going to say anything negative about FIM on there, and I wouldn't expect to find anything negative on Brammo's website either. Our only source for that kind of information is some fearless on-site repoter (i.e. BrammoFan!)

As long as FIM aren't being such dicks as to prevent the race, I hope it doesn't have any permanent negative effect. :|

I would have liked to be there but it's a bit too far from Florida, so thanks for allowing the rest of us to experience events through your posts.

[FreepZ]

Steve Rapp Mission Motors Laguna Seca Practice TTXGP North American Championship 2011


#Edit - Apparently this is an older video from the Refuel event that was on June 26, when Rapp went around the track in 1:43.7#

Does anybody know if the race will be available to watch live somewhere? According to the TTXGP TV listings, the race at Laguna Seca isn't going to be aired on Speed2 until 15th August. Hopefully we'll be able to see something sooner on TTXGP's You Tube channel.

[FreepZ]

If anybody hasn't figured this out yet, the best way to get news from Laguna right now is to follow this twitter feed.

Apparently Mission is on Pole with "1.21 something". Yikes, that's fast! And Mission says that the reason they are so fast is because of the software that controls the bike during turns. I wonder what that software is doing.
 

[FreepZ]

Preliminary results (from TTXGP's twitter feed):

RAPP, CZYSZ, BARNES, ATLAS, BRANETTI, HIMMELMANN, WOLFF, MOREDA, SCHLESS, MANZANO

The placement is quite similar to the practice results:
1. Rapp - Mission Motors (Ended up 1st)
2. Czysz - Segway Racing MotoCzysz (2nd)
3. Barnes - Lightning Motorcycles (3rd)
4. Himmelmann - Munch Racing Team (6th)
5. Atlas - Brammo Racing (4th)
6. Brannetti - CRP Racing (5th)
7. Wolff - Moto Electra Racing (7th)
8. Moreda - CRP Racing (8th)
9. Schless - Proto Moto Racing (9th)
10. Manzano - LGN Racing Team (10)
11. Kluge - K Squared Racing

Congratulations to Rapp for the win and to Atlas and Brannetti for beating fate.

[CBke]

More results

TTXGP: http://www.egrandprix.com/news.php?id=240

Complete overview: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B5wObJwWP2eFYjJiY2Q5NmQtMzlkZS00MzQ0LTkwMTgtZWQwMGZhZTAzNDE4&hl=en_US&pli=1

Pos 2 and 3 are close, pos 4, 5 and 6 are close.
Waiting for the race video's

[EmpulseRider]

If anybody hasn't figured this out yet, the best way to get news from Laguna right now is to follow this twitter feed.

Apparently Mission is on Pole with "1.21 something". Yikes, that's fast! And Mission says that the reason they are so fast is because of the software that controls the bike during turns. I wonder what that software is doing.
 

The bike isnt piloting itself, give "the other Steve" some credit Mission! I assume the mentioned software has something to do with traction control. Also, congrats Brammo on solid finish!

[protomech]

Very impressive work from Mission Motors -- and from the rest of the competitors. This was a much closer race, and much more interesting than the last TTXGP race. Have they announced a reschedule for the third race (previously set for VIR) or is this it?

It's interesting that the Lightning bike had a much larger top speed advantage vs the other bikes but ran low on energy at the end (allowing the E1PC to pass). I'm guessing that the other bikes limited their top speed in order to use that energy to go faster elsewhere.

[protomech]

Have they announced a reschedule for the third race (previously set for VIR) or is this it?

TTXGP official site, July 24 2011:
http://www.egrandprix.com/news.php?id=240

The replace venue for TTXGP North American Final will be annouced in the next few days.

[Brammofan]

Thanks for holding down the fort, guys.  The internet connection was awful out there.  You had asked how the "FIM were being dicks" and it ended up being resolved by the end of the weekend, but mainly it seemed like they were treating TTXGP management like second class citizens and just a level of disrespect toward them.  Azhar is nothing if persistent, however, so when they figured he wasn't just going to lay back and take it, and that he wasn't going to just go away, things got better.  The amount of levels of bureaucracy in racing is pretty astounding (and that's from a guy who knows a little about bureaucracy).  You've got Dorna controlling all media and access to the track, FIM covering the rules (but stretching their level of control a bit into Dorna's turf when it came to  the electric bikes, and TTXGP having some rules that needed to be enforced as well.  It seemed that TTXGP was more concerned with making sure that rules dealing with safety were clearly enforced (no letting stuff slip by) and FIM was really focused on not letting TTXGP put any banners up and... get this... they didn't want TTXGP to use the "GP" part of their name, claiming that FIM has an Intellectual Property right to those two letters used in proximity to each other.  They insisted on calling it the FIM e-Power / TTX race.  It looks (from the articles I've seen) that the restriction on the GP didn't end up sticking very well.  Most folks continue to call it TTXGP.

I am still at SFO waiting for my flight, but I hope to provide some more information from the race.