Over the next few days, the TT ZERO race will have several activities leading up to the TT ZERO race on Wednesday morning (Isle of Man time). Today they have a practice round, and a couple qualifying rounds are scheduled over the weekend. There’s also been some social media chatter the last few days that are clarifying the status of teams which are or could have been in the TT ZERO. This report includes not only practice round results, but the status of electric motorcycle teams which aren’t at TT ZERO but had participated in previous years.
From today’s results it’s a safe bet the 120 miles/hr lap speed barrier will be broken. John McGuinness had a 116+ miles/hr lap time and hit a speed over 160 miles/hr at the Sulby speed trap. More details below.
This is the the participants list in this year’s TT ZERO.
Only six machines went out for practice today – Mugen, Victory, and Sarolea.
John McGuinness went for a very fast lap. According to the TT LIVE results monitor he was clocked at 162.50 miles/hr at the Sulby speed trap. Note that in the Superbike event he’d been in earlier in the day, speeds were between 170-195 miles/hr. At the Ramsey timing point his lap speed showed 125 miles/hr, at the Bungalow it had dropped to 120 miles/hr and at Cronk-ny-Mona it had dropped to 116 miles/hr.
By comparison the two Victory Motorcycles riders, Lee Johnston and William Dunlop, were taking it easy. with 100+ miles/hr lap speeds.
Scroll down to the bottom for a collection of results screen captures. This is just a practice round, so the people who went out may have been taking it easy. Except, that is, John McGuinness who clearly went for it to see what this years bike is capable of.
The 162 miles/hr speed through Sulby is almost surely a record for electric bikes on the TT Course.
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The fastest electric motorcycle speed I’ve heard of in race conditions (not land speed racing) was 170 miles/hr by Brammo at the 2012 TTXGP World Championship at Daytona International Raceway. Conditions at Daytona are night and day different from the Isle of Man road system. Daytona is built for speed, with a steeply banked track, while the Snaefell Mountain Course is just the Isle of Man road system. See the John McGuinness’ record breaking TT ZERO 2014 lap video to get a sense of this.
In other words, hitting 162 miles/hr at Sulby is astonishing, and is a harbinger of an exciting week to come.
Team Mugen
These are the latest iteration of the Mugen Shinden bikes. As last year, they have John McGuinness and Bruce Anstey riding, both are at the pinnacle of TT Racing.
Just stunning @MUGENSHINDENTT
#thatsallihavetosay
— John McGuinness MBE (@jm130tt) June 4, 2015
https://twitter.com/iom_tt/status/606910756458795008
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Saietta/Splitlath
Saietta is apparently not going to participate this year. Last week they announced a merger with Agni Motors to form the Saietta Group. See Saietta+Agni merger yields Saietta Group, leading transition to new transportation system
While it will be interesting to see what they come up with, they’re probably busy with merger stuff and can’t go racing.
Victory Racing
In my previous post I’d put together several bits of data to prove the Victory Racing team is really the Brammo team, but with new livery. Since then I’ve seen Facebook postings to confirm this. Brian Wisman, Brammo’s product design lead, is there and billed as the Victory Racing Team Manager, the same title he had with Brammo.
Several of the teams had done testing at the Jurby track, which is where I snagged this picture.
Team Sarolea Racing
These guys got interviewed by local media
Robert and Torsten fully focused #iomtt2015
— Saroléa motorcycles (@SaroleaMoto) June 5, 2015
Kingston Univ e-Racing
The bike and the rider #iomtt2015
— Ion Horse (@KU_eBike) June 1, 2015
https://twitter.com/drrobertrayner/status/605057809030500353
Brunel Univ Racing TT ZERO
No postings could be found from which to make a report.
Univ of Nottingham
The team arrived on the Isle of Man with an incomplete bike. Going by their Facebook postings they’re in crunch time to finish assembling and testing. They’ve built a completely custom motorcycle frame, including a massive looking motor from Parker (the company which supplies motors to Brammo/Victory).
In the meantime they posted this video of the conditions:
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