Today, after nearly two weeks on the Isle of Man, the Mission Motors team and their Mission One motorcycle prototype returned to San Francisco, having taken part in motorsports and electric vehicle history. Friday, June 12th, Mission Motors competed in the first-ever internationally sanctioned Zero Emissions Grand Prix, the TTXGP. One stop on Mission Motors’ road to production of the Mission One, the TTXGP, held in conjunction with the world renowned Isle of Man TT motorcycle race, proved to be the perfect arena to stress test the prototype under extreme real-world race conditions. Eighteen bikes entered, twelve qualified, and ten finished the race.
After successfully qualifying for Friday’s main event, the team ran into a series of technical difficulties, the greatest being the loss of the drive train on the second day of practice. Using non-optimal spares, the team worked through the night to prepare the bike for Friday’s TTXGP.
Mission Motors racer Thomas Montano completed the 37.73 mile course with a time of 30:33:26 and an average speed of 74.091 MPH, crossing the finish line at 100.3 MPH. Mission Motors finished in 4th place.
"We’re disappointed that we weren’t on the podium, but are thrilled to have had the opportunity to compete in this historic event," said Forrest North, Founder and CEO. "We feel strongly that racing is a great way to push the technology in a direction that is consumer oriented. Essentially, we were able to do about 6 months worth of R&D in about a week, working out kinks and gathering valuable data to improve our production bike."
Mission Motors will next compete at the first international gathering of electric road-race bikes in the U.S, the AMA eGrand Prix at Mid-Ohio in Lexington, Ohio, July 24-26, 2009.