It’s an All-Visual, All-Production Experience Here At Laguna Seca

Shelina Moreda with her 2013 Parker Racing Brammo RR. Photo courtesy of esbk.co

First practice for the first US round of the 2013 FIM eRoadRacing championship at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca is on the books. Shane Turpin and Eric Bostrom started quick and led throughout first practice on the Brammo Empulse TTX bikes, staying in the 1:34′s throughout practice. Ted Rich and Shelina Moreda dice it out for 3rd in the 1:51′s throughout practice. The gap from their factory Brammo TTX’s to the stock Brammos and all Zeroes is significant. Partly due to the fact that their bikes are up on power, and partly due to rider experience in the case of some of the modified Zeroes.

What’s exciting about the 2013 round of eRoadRacing here at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca is that the entire field are motorcycles available for sale. With some bikes in the production class and some in the modified class, all of which are either Brammo or Zero, this will be the first electric motorcycle race where the entire field are bikes available for sale now. Bikes in the modified class have been modified, of course, but they’re as based on production as any World Superbike machine. That 17 second gap is not cheap.

Sometime this weekend, I’ll talk to Brammo about the mods that go into a TTX bike to make it that much faster than the RR any of us can buy. Enjoy this screenshot of the first practice final results, as I wait for photos to be available. Do try to come for Sunday’s race, it is truly exciting to see a field full of production bikes. There will be three races, essentially. The race for first between Turpin and Bostrom, the race for third between Rich and Moreda, and the race for fifth between Kluge and Johnson, both on modified Zeroes. Kluge is an engineer at Zero, while Johnson is a veteran pro racer, so it will be interesting to see their talents balance each other out. Kowitz is a Brammo customer, and Miller a Zero customer who has completed every racing goal he’s set for himself since that fateful day I told him to stop dragging his pegs and go to California Superbike School.

First Practice Results

Source: Gas2.0