Before I present the results there's a little bit to say about rules. The FIM is taking a fairly hard line stance about a particular rule. Namely the qualifying of race bikes. I am not going to pretend to understand the formula but there is a 120% number which is being used to preclude qualifying some of the bikes. There are 12 teams here at Laguna Seca and 9 of them will race. The other three teams are outta luck.
I had a long talk about rules with one of the FIM guys this evening. The TTXGP people haven't been holding any qualifying boundary of this sort, and the idea is purposely to allow more bikes to race. The field of race ready electric motorcycles in the world is very small (maybe 30 total?) and the attitude at TTXGP is that in this phase they'll let anybody race. The FIM rule has an effect of not letting the slower bikes race with faster bikes.
Having a tighter pack makes for a more interesting race. It's also a safety issue if/when slow bikes are passed by faster ones. The FIM guy's attitude was a) rules are rules and oh by the way 120% is looser than the standard of 107%, and b) it holds a stand that we're here to race
Qualifying results
1 #80 Michael Barnes, Lightning Motors, 1:45.769 - top speed 189.1 km/hr
2 #3 Michael Czysz, Motoczysz, 1:47.338 - top speed 186.9 km/hr
3 #22 Thijs de Ridder, Crystalyte-Europe, 1:48.570 - top speed 161.4 km/hr
4 #49 Matthias Himmelman, Munch Racing Team, 1:52.505 - top speed 164.4 km/hr
5 #115 Thomas Betti, Betti Moto, 1:52.714, - top speed 147.4 km/hr
6 #15 Michael Hannas, Electric Race Bikes .com, 1:58.123 - top speed 138.2 km/hr
7 #8 Ely Schless, Pro Moto Racing, 2:04.987 - top speed 144.6 km/hr
Provisional qualifying (did not qualify by todays results, but qualified by yesterdays)
#38 Luciano Betti, Betti Moto, 2:34.431, - top speed n/a
#17 Christian Armendt, Epo-Bike,
Not qualifying
#96 Kenyon Kluge, K Squared Racing, 2:11.648 - top speed 120.7 km/hr
#48 Ranier Kopp, Kurrent Team, 2:22.983
#18 Nick Hayman, Pril Motors, 2:24.783
Interesting note - Ely Schless qualified to race, but he left anyway. His bike has two motors, and they blew up on the track.
Didn't they let a scooter race earlier when they had fewer entrants?
I don't think that would meet the 120% rule.
These guys seem like a Monty Python routine.
Oh well, like I said the other day Lightning Motors vs. Motoczysz...the race we have been waiting for...
Clash of the Titans!
Didn't think to ask them about that. Yes, they had a scooter racing in the European e-Power races. BTW I'm writing my article right now about the clash of titans.
- David Herron, The Long Tail Pipe, davidherron.com, 7gen.com, What is Reiki