2012 FIM e-Power Electric Motorcycle Racing
For the third year in a row electric motorcycles convened on Laguna Seca’s world famous track for FIM’s e-Power electric motorcycle racing series.
Team Icon Brammo showed up in the nick of time for the practice round on Friday with riders Eric Bostrom and Steve Atlas.
Minor technical issues kept the team from pushing their limits and talents on the track. Saturday’s qualifying also continued to present challenges, which the team was able to use as learning opportunities and keep moving forward with high morale and exemplary team work.
At Sunday’s race event, the hard work paid off, though, and team Icon Brammo finished with their two racers on the podium, trophies in hand.
While first place went to Barracuda Lightning’s Michael Barnes, with a total time of 14:32.030 and an average speed of 134.123 Km/h, Team Icon Brammo’s Steve Atlas finished a close second at 14:34.963 with an average speed of 133.678 Km/h, just 2.903 seconds behind Barnes. Team Icon Brammo’s newest rider, the legendary Eric Bostrom, finished third with a time of 14:44.858 and an average speed of 132.183 Km/h.
Laguna Seca’s race weekend was only Bostrom’s second time on the bike. At the press conference after the race Bostrom explained, “I only rode the bike a week ago and I said to the team, “If I don’t like it I am out.” But just pulling out of the pits and coming out of the race track, it put a big smile on my face and surpassed all my expectations; I am still coming up to speed on how to ride the bike and it may have caught me out a little bit. With Barnes setting a blistering pace it was cool to see the other Brammo up there and my team mate Steve pushing me to go faster. The biggest disappointment for me was not being able to keep Barnes honest and push him to the end.”
Team Manager, Brian Wismann, was happy overall with the performance of both the bikes and the riders, “Team Icon Brammo are very pleased to come away from the FIM ePower/TTX race at Laguna Seca with its first double podium. We had hoped to be on the top step with one of our riders, but with the way our weekend went, we’re quite satisfied with the result. We leave Monterey knowing we’ve got a couple of fast bikes that have more performance to give going into the final round of the TTX North American Championship at Miller Motorsports Park. Steve and Eric are pumped up and feeling confident following their stellar performances on Sunday. If the team can manage to eliminate the glitches that cost us precious track time, I think these guys will be the ones to beat at Miller.”
Wismann continues, “Also, it’s great to see the lap times improve and the parity gap diminish as it really made the racing exciting. Hats off to Michael Barnes and Lightning for finally getting their well-deserved win!”
