It’s here, the final race of the 2012 TTXGP with the world final in North America for the first time. As I write this I am on the airplane heading to Daytona to bring you the racing action as it happens. Unfortunately I don’t have an official entry list to share, but a few of the teams have posted pictures and stuff about being on their way or have already arrived at the track.
What I’ve seen so far is: Catavolt tweeted last week that they were packed up and already on their way to Daytona. Muench has posted pictures on Facebook of the Elam lounging around in a hotel bar, indicating they are not worried. Brammo has posted a teaser video and I’ve seen a tweet from Steve Atlas yesterday that he was at SFO on his way to Florida. No word from Zongshen or Lightning. I did see a note from Jeremiah Johnson that he will get to ride some kind of motorcycle in the race, but not his own build. It was reported on Richard Dorts podcast that both Zero and Virginia Tech have pulled out.
This means it looks like the field will be the Top Bikes, except for Catavolt which I believe is not in the same performance league. I can’t imagine that Lightning will skip the World Final, so let’s just assume they will be there. Whether Zongshen will be there I have no idea, but one hopes they do come.
With a field primarily containing Top Bikes we should see the first TTXGP that is a full-on superbike level of performance. In every other TTXGP event the field has been split into Top Bikes and the Slower ones. Not to disrespect anybody’s contribution to the effort of electric racing, but this disparity in performance is something whose time needs to pass. The sport needs to move towards separating the fast bikes and slow bikes into their own races. The slow bikes look bad when they’re getting passed like they’re standing still.
But that’s tangential to the race this weekend.
Earlier I wrote up a prediction of the results, but came to the conclusion it would be a race between Brammo and Lightning for the top spot with Meunch behind them. A lot depends on whether Lightning does indeed attend, and unfortunately they have been known to disappoint us in the past. The wild cards are whether Zongshen shows up, how they perform, and additionally whether the teams have amped anything up since their last races.
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