Attended the Refuel race today @ Laguna Seca

OMG! http://www.refuelraces.com/

This race was organized by Speed Ventures, an organization that does professional race car instruction. They had an idea to sponsor race track time for "alternative fuel vehicles" which turned into electric vehicles.

As a result, electric vehicles were running on the track at Laguna Seca all day today. It was a sweet sight to see.

For cars: 7 Tesla's, one of the AC Propulsion TZero's, 3-4 custom EV race cars, a formula One style EV race car made by kleenspeed, Bob Schneivas' Snow White race car, ?3? go-karts

Motorcycles: A special bike made by one of the mission motors employees, the Shocker from patmont motor works, the super bike built by Electric Motorsport for TTXGP (but which didn't run there), plus ?3? of Electric Motorsport GPR-S bikes, and a souped up pocket bike ridden by Steve Muskarelli

That's from memory, I may have missed some.

One time when the cars were lining up to run, the Tesla owners were calling out to each other about how supremely perfect it felt to be doing this. I got that on video.

The Teslas were doing great going around the track.. but they were hampered by a design decision. At full bore like track conditions, the Tesla's were making two laps and then going into a lower power mode because of overheating. Tesla's are designed for street use, not track use. They don't have the cooling system needed for track use. That's a bit of a shame as they have the race car body and the drive train to do racing.

Not all the vehicles got onto the track, and some of the ones which did had problems. One car the guy had it configured for drag racing mode and his motor tore itself up and did a plasma ball, for example. One of the go-karts had a similar motor malfunction but not as dramatic.

The Shocker bike looks even weirder in person than in the videos. It's designed by the people who design the goped. They're interested in breaking into a new market. The Shocker is a dirt bike style, but the suspension is more than strange. On both front and rear it's a single side connection between frame & wheel (single side fork, single side swing arm). The battery pack has some kind of cooling system with a radiator.