posted on August 22, 2010 22:31
Wrapping up the first US TTXGP in Virginia
Just came back from Virginia's VIR TTXGP, the last round in North America for 2010, and only the finals in Spain left. That's it for North America, and what a year it has been! Taking part in the first ever Electric Motorcycle Racing Grand Prix was one for the history books. Looking back, it has been amazing, all the things that happened, all the people I have met. It went by in a whirlwind, prepping and developing the Mavizen, traveling, racing. I was blown away and impressed by the passion of everybody involved. By all the people that helped fund this effort, $20 and $50 at a time, and got us through the season. By our corporate sponsors, please give them some love. By the support of the spectators. By the growing interest by the public in only four races. By the dedication of my competitors. And by the driving force by the man with the vision, the founder of TTXGP, Azhar Hussain.Thanks everybody for a great season!
But enough of the lofty stuff, here's the race report. :) VIR was hot and humid, tough to be racing in that heat, but lots of water and air conditioned facilities we could sneak in to cool down made it all bearable. I had the suspension reworked again by Superplush to make it work better with the forward weight bias, and kept tweaking it during practice and qualifying, and I finally, finally got it to work right. Thanks James! The machine is really a pleasure to ride, what a blast! It feels like I am now riding the bike rather than it riding me! I dropped 10 seconds between Qualifying and the Warm Up Sunday morning, and another 9 seconds in the race! Wish I had had just one more practice with the bike handling like it does now, I bet I could've shed another 5 seconds which would've put me in the dice for second...
At the start we all piled into Turn One, and I somehow got pushed wide, so at the exit I found myself heading straight into the lawn. I had the choice of either going straight and getting out of the race, or to lean it over as far as I could in the hopes of making it without going down. Apparently part of my tire was already hanging over the grass, but I made it. I scraped the ^*(%^ out of the bike though and lost a little time but I had a good dice with Mike Hannas of Electric Race Bikes for the next few laps, until we got separated by a lapper that he passed in the straight and I had to get him in the corner, and I couldn't make it up. Still, I had a great race, and I am still in 2nd place overall in riders points! And 3rd in constructors points. Woohoo!
Next year will see a lot of improvements implemented on the Mavizen, issues that arose while testing it on the race track. That's ultimately what racing is about apart from being really fun: R&D, research and development. The bike is already in the UK now, where it got shipped to directly from Virginia. The Mavizen factory will work on a better controller, stream lining, and other things before we go to race against the UK teams in Albacete, Spain on October 24th. I'm trying to get to the Intermot on October 11th in Cologne, Germany, as well, which will have a huge electric vehicle display called E-Motion, which should be really exciting. Can't wait to see what the rest of the world is up to. Intermot is the biggest motorcycle show in the world, and I'll be sure to take lots of notes and pictures, or if you happen to be in Europe, stop by!
BTW, we are having a 16 Year Anniversary Party/Oktoberfest at Werkstatt on September 24th before we leave. Sweet 16! It'll be German food, music, and a raffle with some cool prizes and hopefully some electric motorcycles on display, we'll let you know. Hope to see you there!
werkstattsf.com