I realized I forgot to post up here my experience at the brand spanking new Thunderhill section! I went out for a
4theriders charity track day. This was the first time that motorcycles had ever been run on just the west course by itself as a circuit.
Getting more comfortable leaning the bike over! Haha gotta get some rearsets or I am probably going to lose another shifter peg.
Also the new track is AWESOME. It's way
tighter and more technical than the other Thunderhill (east? old-school? classic?). Lots of hairpins, not a huge straight -- perfect for the Empulse! I heard a lot of riders wishing they'd brought a 250 or some smaller/lighter bike.
The shining expanse of brand new untouched blacktop was beautiful. Only downside was it was HOT. It was 105 or higher the whole day. I don't think I had regen at any point after the first couple laps. At one point I thought I'd melted my Clipper Creek LCS-25 because it was flashing double-red fault lights and wouldn't charge the bike. I put it under some shade for awhile and it eventually recovered though.
Anyway, tons of fun. Also it has been interesting seeing the effects that the Brammo race team has had on electric acceptance. When I started doing trackdays last year, everybody was bamboozled and didn't know what to make of it when I showed up with the Empulse. Now that the team has been mixing it up in AFM gasbike races though, everybody was pretty much like 'oh yeah Brammo! they're cool.' People still definitely come over to talk to me about the bike, but it has been more and more out of a sense of curiosity about what it's like to own and/or ride one, as opposed to "WTF is that???" or suspicion or dismissal or whatever.
Granted, it's not as though the average track rat/AFM racer is exactly the target market Brammo is looking for -- but there's gotta be some ripple effect there eventually.
