McGuinness and Anstey nearly break 120 miles/hr at 2015 TT ZERO, Victory has great first outing

John McGuinness and Bruce Anstey both broke the TT ZERO lap record today in the 2015 TT ZERO, held under perfect weather.  Of the six finishers, five broke the ton (lap speed over 100 miles/hr) and three of them finished with greater than 110 miles/hr lap speed, demonstrating the rapidity of the advancement year-on-year.   Both McGuinness and Anstey broke the lap record from last year, but while they got tantalizingly close to the 120 miles/hr threshold they didn’t quite do it.  It was two years ago when the 110 miles/hr threshold was almost surpassed, which was achieved last year when McGuinness had a 117 miles/hr lap speed.

Today, McGuinness had a 119.279 miles/hr lap speed, Anstey 118.857 miles/hr, Johnston had 111.620 miles/hr, Martin had 109.717 miles/hr, Wilson had 106.510 miles/hr and Sweeney had 73.516 miles/hr.  James Cowton for Brunel Univ had to retire from the race on the mountain.

That’s four bikes beating the lap record set two years ago when Michael Rutter on a MotoCzysz bike had 109.675 miles/hr, just inching past McGuinness who had 109.527 miles/hr that year.

McGuinness could possibly have broken the 120 miles/hr threshold this year.  Immediately following the race he explained to Manx Radio that in the first sector the throttle mapping was wrong, which is why Anstey led in that sector, then he changed the throttle map and got back to full power.

This is an excellent result for Victory Motorcycles in their first showing in the TT ZERO.  Both their riders broke (or nearly did so) the 110 miles/hr threshold.  I feel it necessary to mention in passing that of course Brammo had participated in the 2009 TTXGP, but the team name is now Victory Motorcycles and of course the name of the race is TT ZERO and not TTXGP meaning there’s been a change in management.  I recently wrote up some history if you want to see the details.

Sarolea is a historic motorcycle brand who is in their second year at the TT ZERO.  Last year they nearly got on the podium in 3rd place, but instead the Ohio State Univ team with Rob Barber riding snagged that position instead.  Their time this year is a great improvement.  They’ve gone for a light-weight design with lots of carbon fiber.

There are two spots on course where absolute speed is reported, rather than lap time.  Sulby is a long flat straight where they can get up a good speed, and this year both McGuinness and Anstey were comfortably above 160 miles/hr.  Last year they were instead above 150 miles/hr, again showing the year-on-year improvements being made.

Asphalt & Rubber posted an article with details about the Victory Motorcycles bikes.

Parker Hannifin sent out a press release about the motors they’ve supplied to Victory Motorcycles and Nottingham University.  Parker Hannifin’s Global Vehicle Motor (GVM) PMAC electric motor that is eight inches in diameter and five inches long, but can deliver 175 horsepower and 97 per cent efficiency.  The motor is water cooled, rather than oil cooled, because water cooling extracts more heat than oil.   Parker supplies the motor as a kit that can be installed in any vehicle as-is.  Victory Motorcycles designed their own canister, and Parker integrated the guts of the motor with that canister.  Notingham Univ instead used the kit motor as-is rather than designing their own container.

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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.

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