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Here’s a quicky for you folks.  Brammo was on track today and Shelina found 3 seconds on the TTX and E-Boz found another 2.  Shelina did end up in the kitty litter on the TTX today, but it was easily repaired.  The awesome news is that Shelina got to ride the RR in the Afemme class that ran today.  I had heard the class was expected to be about 30 riders, [edit: only 6 raced].  Shelina got 6th 5th against what seems to have been mostly 600cc machines.  Apparently the RR had some serious pull on the 600s at Thunder Hill.  At 160hp, I should certainly hope so.

The TT folks have not posted official results but I looked up TTLive.com and found this (excuse the format):

Some Twitter surfing and the Buckeye’s latest update on the Elmoto.net forum helped me confirm these results.  The Mugen’s transponder didn’t work but Mugen is claiming a 107+mph lap speed.  Also the ManTTX guys were working on their pack and didn’t have time to get it charged in time, hence why they weren’t on today’s list.  So best guess order would be:

1 MotoCzysz (Rutter)

2 Mugen (McGuinness)

3 MotoCzysz (Miller)

4 Kingston University (Spence) [there they are!]

5 Vercamoto (Mcgahan)

6 Komatti (Lougher)

7 Brunel University (Owen)

8 Buckeye Current (Barber)

Kingston’s first lap is close to but still short of the Current’s first lap.  However, even though they lowered the current limit the Ohio team still had controller issues and Barber was forced to reset the bike multiple times.  He did all that and still got a 70mph lap.  That’s impressive, even if they plummeted to the bottom of the time sheets.  They say Barber thinks they have a 100mph bike if they can weed out all the issues with the controller as it is handling so well.  Vercamoto and particularly Brunel, went a fair bit faster today too, where Komatti seems to have stayed steady.

That’s all I can seem to bring together for tonight.  Lets hope Kyle remembers to call me tomorrow.  Later.

There is so much news I feel like my head is going to explode.  Mostly because I suspect sleep is going to be a relative term for the next few days, and Sunday is going to be a very long day sitting in front of the computer.  I have been riding the ol’ bicycles in anticipation.  Basically here’s the nutshell.  Terry Hershner is headed home back to Florida finally, but armed with a custom Vetter fairing he is trying to scoop MotoElectra’s record attempt which leaves the opposite coast in a few days.  Then there is Brammo.  Brian Wismann gave me the line up for the Weekend.  And then there is the TT, and first practice happened today, and the results will surprise you.

First up, Terry Hershner has set off from California to break and set a new cross continent record, hoping to set a bar that MotoElectra cannot touch.  The difference is Terry is armed with his new Vetter fairings and has already logged 117 miles in one charge with his new expanded battery pack.  He also has many chargers on board and can actually charge from two J1772 chargers at once, at what I believe is at least  a 1C charge rate.  So armed with the experience from coming across the country once already he has a pretty good battle plan on hitting up charging stations as he goes.  However this is  the real difference between the two attempts, as Terry will be using the current infrastructure and will do the trip solo.  MotoElectra will be doing it with a chase vehicle and a gas generator down the I-10 in order to show where the charging stations need to be.  What strikes me as funny is Tesla just announced their initial placement of their Superchagers for Model S owners to get across the continent will be along the northern I-80 Interstate.  Hmmm.  Best of luck to both, but you guys really picked a bad weekend to try to snag publicity.  Go ahead, compete with Brammo taking on gas bikes and the Isle of Man.

On the Brammo front I received this from Mr. Wismann:

Here’s the line-up for the weekend:

Eric Bostrom on the RR, racing Formula 1 (Race 7 on Sunday) and 750 Superbike (Race 11 on Sunday)

Shelina Moreda on the TTX, racing 250 Superbike (Race 3 on Sunday)

[redacted]

Steve had to miss this round, but will be back for the ReFuel event at Laguna Seca.

We’ll be hoping to exploit the power of the RR at this faster Thunderhill track.

I can give you a call for an update during the weekend and will ask Eric if he’s up for it as well.  Probably need to keep it under an hour though…

Thanks!

No, thank you Brian for answering my late night antics.  Notice the redacted part did you?  Well, watch the news coming from Brammo on Saturday.  I will be doing my regular day job, but there might be something that will get you regular followers really excited.  I don’t want to jinx it, and not sure it’s happening, so you’ll just have to pay attention or wait for the interviews.  Thunder Hill, if you aren’t in the know, is the track that Brammo develops their bikes at.  The riders know it well, and the bike, by rights, should work the best at that track.  Steve-O has chased down some serious 600s around the place.  It is also much more of a horsepower track than Sonoma was, so the weight will be less of a factor.  It’s gonna be good.  I will have a Google+ Hangout put together for the event and will post the details on Facebook and Twitter when the time comes.  Expect technical difficulties.  It should be a wicked weekend.

Now for the news you all want to know, and no it’s not the MotoCzysz unveiling photos the mainstream guys lose their damn minds over (it’s cool guys, but there actual stories going on).  No, it’s the time sheet from the first day’s practice of the TT Zero:

SES TT Zero Qualifying – Friday, May 31 – All Laps

Pos   No.    Rider                           Machine/Entrant                                                               LapTime         Speed

1         3      John McGuinness         MUGEN/Mugen                                                                     21:25.639       105.65

2         1      Michael Rutter               MotoCzysz/                                                                          21:38.157       104.63

3         2      Mark Miller                     MotoCzysz/MotoCzysz                                                        22:07.373       102.33

4       10      Robert Barber              RW-2/  [edit: Buckeye Current]                                             25:41.681         88.10

5         8      Dave Moffitt                  MANTTX Racing/                                                                  28:15.850         80.09

6         7     Chris Mcgahan              Yamaha/Vercarmoto                                                             29:12.504         77.51

7         5     Ian Lougher                   KOMATTI/                                                                              30:23.633         74.48

8         6     Antonio Maeso              Imperial College of London/Imperial College of London         32:02.174         70.66

9         9     Paul Owen                    Brunel/Brunel University                                                       35:02.690          64.60

OFFICIAL RESULTS

Gary Thompson, Clerk of the Course

OK, so Mugen is on top and has already smoked last year’s record in the first practice.  The MotoCzysz teammates have basically replicated their lap times from last year.  It seems to me they may have set the bikes to replicate last year’s bikes to confirm this year’s changes are actually what they think they are, but that is pure speculation.  Look for faster times  from them tomorrow.  The big surprise, that isn’t all that surprising is the Buckeyes being the fastest of the rest with an 88mph lap first time out.  Look for that time to go up . . . a lot.  And the next three are the usual suspects running much slower than I would have thought.  But hey, they completed a lap, and that is a big step forward for some.  Is suspect some will not finish a lap tomorrow as they might be looking to see how hard they can push the bikes next.  After that is the other two universities.  What we don’t see and don’t know is why Kingston isn’t on this list.  And the MCN Zero team isn’t listed, which sounds like the MCN guys stole a Zero S and are running it around the Isle for a bit of good fun.  I am sure will find out.

For the latest updates from the Buckeyes go to the Elmoto.net thread here. Here’s the latest from them:

Been a busy last two days. We managed to get some time at the Jurby airstrip on Wed and did 17 total laps (1.05mile track, 1:26 lap time). We were told that Mugen was running 1:14 lap times and actually ran 45 laps yesterday. So we aren’t too far behind. Imperial college was testing when we were out there and we flew by them on the back straight. Rob Barber thought the bike handled well and had good power. Still going to upgrade the springs because he was bottoming out on the brakes. We also need a new belly pan as Rob was scrapping on both sides haha. This is a good thing, because there is additionally clearance between the belly and the batteries.

Unfortunately no data was collected except for some battery (15degC to 42degC after 30min) and coolant (ended at 30degC) temperatures. Those checked out just fine. Hand temp checks on the motor and controller were good as well so cooling system is working well.

Yesterday we spend time making a new belly pan, mounting the tail-light, and balancing. We actually manually balanced a few modules. We used a power supply to bring 3 modules up and some power resistors dunked in water to bring 1 module down. This one module was higher because we actually skipped it when rebussing the pack. One of the oddest things ever. The rest of the cells are being balanced by the bleed resistors. Pack was charged up to 441V and the rest of the juice is going in today (up to 4.2V each or 453V total) after things have balanced ever more. Balancing to deltaV of 10mV.

Electrical team also did final installs of the new contactor switch box and tritium display. The contactors are being switched manually because of BMS issues, but this has worked great so far and is more tolerant proof. We will be displaying Ah for Rob to monitor over the course of the race. It works out that if he uses less than 1Ah per mile he will be just fine finishing (we have a 40Ah(measured) pack). Nice and simple number. We might have the display switch to Voltage near the end of the run thou, but that gets more complicated.

On a personally note I got to see the MotoCzysz reveal in person and chatted with a few of the guys on site. They were very nice and answered most of my questions, thou I know better than to ask for the gory details (they still won’t share those). Their bikes are pretty much the same powertrain layout and design. I believe they have new better cells from Kokam, but that they take up the same volume and packaging space it appears. Maybe slightly narrower. It appears that the radiator is tucked up under the tail. They also have a tube rearsubframe now and standard Ohlins suspension. I was told this actually saved about 5lbs because of the removal of linkages and fasteners required to have the tank shocks. They did however design their own headstock which allows the forks to pivot ever so slightly left and right to help tune the harmonics through the frame. IE it allows for better control of the road forces transmitted to/through the frame when the bike is leaning over and the forks are not able to work as effectively. They are still developing the Oval forks that they have run in the past.

I have heard that 10 teams are here. Mugen, MotoCzysz 1, MotoCxysz 2, Imperial, ManXTT, and Vercarmoto I have seen or met in person. Both Brunel and Kingston have been spotted, but I couldn’t find their paddock. Komatti-Mirai are here somewhere, but they are without a rider at the moment. The grid should be pretty full. We set off today at 8:30pm IOM time or 3:30pm EST time. I will update as best as I can.

This is getting good!