McGuinness sets 111 miles/hr lap record in TT ZERO qualifying/practice session on Friday May 30

Today the 2014 TT ZERO is having its first practice session on the Isle of Man. At the bottom of this is a bunch of postings I’ve located on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. The big news is that John McGuinness, riding for Team Mugen Shinden, broke the 110 miles/hr threshold, hitting a 111.904 miles/hr lap speed. Going by the Manx Radio reporting, he rode real hard the whole race, hitting 164 miles/hr at the Sulby Speed Trap.

James Hiller seems to not have a bike to ride in the TT ZERO, according to a post on ElMoto by a member of one of the teams. However, some ManTTX and Brunel Univ have both shown up. That makes the entry list a little longer than I posted the other day.

Darvill Racing won’t be in today’s practice session – an hour ago they posted a picture of an Empulse R on the Ferry, on Facebook, meaning they won’t be able to prep it in time to go around the mountain.

Going by Manx Radio reporting from the field, these are the entries and the order they left:

Bruce Anstey – Mugen Shinden
Mark Miller – Team Vercarmoto
Rob Barber – Buckeye Current
Rob Wilson – Team Sarolea
John McGuiness – Mugen Shinden
Russ Mountford – ARC EV Engineering
Brunel University Racing – Paul Owen – based on a Triumph.

Missing at least one machine from the entry list. Dave Moffit was unable to get to the starting line.

Michael Rutter was unable to secure a new ride for the race, given MotoCzysz did not enter (may Michael Czysz have a good recovery).

Bruce Anstey had to retire from race at Quarter Bridge. A picture on Facebook showed Anstey’s bike ~~on fire~~ UPDATE: Turns out I misinterpreted the picture, a readwer who’s on-the-island wrote “The smoke that is visible in the photo is from the rear tire spinning, nothing was on fire. The black mark from the spinning tire was visible this morning on my way to the course.” John McGuinness was going strong at the first checkpoint.

At Sulby speed trap, John McGuinness hit 164.9 miles/hr speed. Think of that – back in 2010 it was amazing that Mission & Lightning hit the land speed record at around that speed, and it’s just four years later that it’s a speed achieved in racing.

At Ramsey Hairpin, the announcer said McGuinness did the highest speed he’d ever seen for an electric bike. The other riders going through, Rob Barber, Rob Wilson, etc, were much slower.

Paul Owen retired at Douglass Road. Russ Mountford retired at Ballagh Bridge.

Finishers:

McGuinness broke the lap record, with a 111.904 miles/hr speed, and a 20:13.202 lap time.
Rob Barber 89.067 miles/hr lap speed
Mark Miller with an unknown lap speed

That’s all which Manx Radio reported. I’ll update this when I get more information. One takeaway is that a significant number of these riders retired, meaning they didn’t finish. Of course not finishing is part of racing, but to gather/maintain excitement for electric racing we need a) more bikes on the grid, b) more bikes finishing the race.

Big news – McGuinness broke the lap record

Big news – Buckeye Current is still the fastest University team, and came in 2nd

Is this the future? A 115mph avg. lap is possible. #TTZero #batterypower pic.twitter.com/9gh2n4N9ng
— Craig Doyle (@craigadoyle) May 29, 2014

by Buckeye Current Racing

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by Darvill Racing

In the holding area waiting to go out pic.twitter.com/VaGUzZvGma
— ARC EV Racing (@ARCEVRacing) May 30, 2014

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by Kyle Ginaven

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About David Herron

David Herron is a writer and software engineer living in Silicon Valley. He primarily writes about electric vehicles, clean energy systems, climate change, peak oil and related issues. When not writing he indulges in software projects and is sometimes employed as a software engineer. David has written for sites like PlugInCars and TorqueNews, and worked for companies like Sun Microsystems and Yahoo.