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| Eric Bostrom at Laguna Seca |
It appears the eRoadRacing World Cup crew quietly closed out the 2013 season without holding a World Final race. A press release has popped up on motorcycle-usa.com and roadracingworld.com saying that Ho Chi Fung (Zongshen) and Eric Bostrom (Brammo) are the winners of the 2013 eRoadRacing season, its first season in existence. Eric Bostrom took first place in the eRoadRacing North America 2013 series, while Ho Chi Fung took first place in the European series.
The full results for the season (see pictures below, copied from the eRoadRacing website
) show
Europe:
- #59 Hoi Chi Fung (Zongshen) 75 pts
- #91 Sue Rong Zai (Zongshen) 61 pts
- #62 Sam West (Agni Racing) 57 pts
North America:
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- #32 Eric Bostrom (Brammo) 45 pts
- #96 Kenyon Kluge (K Squared Racing) 36 pts
- #64 Jeremiah Johnson (BE-EV.COM Racing) 29 pts
The discrepancy in points totals reflects the fact that the European series had four events versus only two events in North America.
The press release included these quotes. I see two things being referenced by the quotes.
When Bostrom says “I want a world championship” he may be referring to the plan in which, starting with the 2014 season, the eRoadRacing series won’t be split into continent-level racing series. Instead it will be a proper world championship, with the same set of teams competing at sites around the world in the same series. As I say below, we haven’t seen eRoadRacing’s announcement for the 2014 season and what their plans are.
When Wismann says “we wish we would have had a bit more competition,” well, lots of us feel the same way. Several teams that are known to have top flight bikes that are competitive with, or superior to, the Bramo Empulse RR, simply did not compete in the 2013 eRoadRacing North America series. We all wish Brammo had had proper competition at the top end, and there are teams in North America with bikes that can beat the Empulse RR, and who can turn in lap times competitive with the gas bikes. Those teams did some amazing things in 2013, achieving big successes, but the top end eRoadRacing competition was left to Brammo for the 2013 season.
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Eric Bostrom, FIM eRoad Racing North American Cup winner 2013, said: ‘The development we have seen in these bikes year-on-year is just amazing. It has been a real pleasure racing in the series with Brammo, the team have been fantastic and Shane was very fast as well. Now I can’t wait to see how the bikes will perform in 2014 because I want a world championship!’
Brian Wismann, Brammo Team Manager, added: ‘Team Icon Brammo is proud to take home a third North American winner and continue our reign as World Champions through to the 2014 season. Congratulations to Eric Bostrom as he’s definitely put in the effort to deserve this award. We wish we would have had a bit more competition but it didn’t stop us from continuing to develop the bikes into more formidable race machines and achieving our technical goals. We’re looking forward to seeing who steps up to challenge the Empulse RR in 2014.’
Ho Chi Fung, FIM eRoad Racing European Cup winner 2013, said: ‘This has been a great season for electric motorcycles and it’s an honour to be crowned European Series winner. I want to say thank you to all the team who all put in so much effort to make this happen. Now we’re looking forward to improving the bike ahead of next season. We want to win this championship again.’
Daniel Chung, Zongshen Team Manager, added: ‘We’re obviously very happy with our season, we have seen a lot of developments with the AC-motored machine and it has been a real learning curve. Now we want to take want we have found into next season and keep developing these bikes to become the fastest out there.’
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Originally, there was going to be a eRoadRacing World Final race for the 2013 season. It was going to be open to the top teams from each series. However, I’d been hearing from the eRoadRacing team about difficulties finding a location for that race, with several possible locations named. Another symptom of those difficulties was the cancellation of the third North America event (Miller Motorsports) and the inability to schedule an event at the World Superbike event at Laguna Seca.
The next big piece of news we expect from eRoadRacing is an announcement of the 2014 Season schedule, characteristics, and rules. A year ago they told me the 2014 season was going to be very different from 2013, a season conducted very similarly to how the TTXGP was operated.
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| eRoadRacing 2013 Europe final standings |
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| eRoadRacing 2013 North America final standings |
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