Electric Motorcycles
Team Zero Agni took home top honors at the inaugural TTXGP and goes down in history as the first winner of a fully electric motorcycle championship series road race held in North America.
The 11-lap duel took place last Sunday at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California, with accomplished AMA racer Shawn Higbee emerging victorious on his Zero/Agni prepared motorcycle.
As the weekend progressed, Higbee dominated the field to qualify for the pole position and held off an intense battle brought on by second-place finisher Michael Barnes.
The stealthy competitors maintained a consistent pace that was only 18 seconds off the lap times of the AMA Superbikes, which proved to be an impressive showing for the all-electric motorcycles in their first outing.
Shawn Higbee says: "I think this could turn into something big. It’s going to introduce a whole new industry to motorcycling," Higbee said.
"The engineers at Zero Motorcycles and Agni Motors are a whole new breed. I’m surprised at how close we are to gas bikes already. The lack of vibration is a new experience and the bike is very agile, you just glide along."
"Shawn rode a great race, the motorcycle performed perfectly and the duel on the track made an already exciting race even more fun to watch," said Gene Banman, CEO of Zero Motorcycles.
"The effort that our team put into this race resulted in a fantastic demonstration of electric motorcycle performance. At the same time, Zero is using this as an opportunity to test the new designs and technology that will drive the next evolution of Zero’s production motorcycles."
Best Average Speed: 59.905 mph
Best Speed: 71.416 mph
Track distance 2.320 miles
TTXGP Race Results
1. 22 Shawn Higbee Zero/Agni 25:33.626 11 1:56.948 Pos. No. Team Constructor Points
2. 80 Michael Barnes Lightning 25:51.784 10 2:01.457 1 22 Zero/Agni 25
3. 15 Mike Hannas ElectricRaceBike 26:44.237 10 2:08.587 2 80 Lightning 20
4. 23 Jennifer Bromme Werkstatt 26:57.716 10 2:15.103 3 15 ElectricRaceBike 16
5. 14 Kenyon Kluge K Squared 29:54.606 10 2:16.393 4 23 Werkstatt 13
6. 18 Zoe Rem Pril Motors 27:51.617 9 2:41.026 5 14 K Squared 11
7. 16 John Wild Square Wave 26:21.047 8 2:44.726 6 18 Pril Motors 10
8. 20 Jason Lauritzen EMS 26:24.765 8 2:12.375 7 16 Square Wave 9
DNF 19 Spencer Smith Volt Motors 24:41.432 9 2:18.965 9 19 Volt Motors
DNF 37 Thad Wolff Team Electra 09:51.966 3 2:06.709 9 37 Team Electra
TTXGP Points
1 22 Shawn Higbee 25
2 80 Michael Barnes 20
3 15 Mike Hannas 16
4 23 Jennifer Bromme 13
5 14 Kenyon Kluge 11
6 18 Zoe Rem 10
7 16 John Wild 9
8 20 Jason Lauritzen 8
9 19 Spencer Smith –
9 37 Thad Wolff –
Zero Motorcycles and Agni Motors are no strangers to competition. In 2009, Zero Motorcycles held "The 24 Hours of Electricross" which became the world’s first all-electric 24-hour off-road race.
Also in 2009, Agni Motors produced a convincing win in the PRO Class at the inaugural TTXGP at the Isle of Man during the world’s first zero-carbon race.
This year, Zero Motorcycles claimed first place in the final heat of a European off-road race and third overall amongst a field of 250 gas motorcycles.
Based on the success that Agni’s motors have displayed on the racetrack, Zero Motorcycles incorporated a race-proven Agni motor into the powertrains of the 2010 Zero S and Zero DS production models.
Zero Motorcycles is the next step in motorcycle evolution and represents the ultimate electric motorcycle technology.
Unencumbered by conventional thinking about how they design, manufacture, and sell high performance electric motorcycles, they are on a mission to turn heads and revolutionize their industry by combining the best aspects of a traditional motorcycle with today’s most advanced technology.
The result is an electric motorcycle line that’s insanely fast and environmentally friendly.
Zero Motorcycles’ complete motorcycle lineup is available for purchase exclusively through the Zero Motorcycles website at: www.zeromotorcycles.com.
Team Zero Agni Sponsors:
— Agni Motors
— Emoli
— Traxxion Dynamics
— DeltaQ
— Aftershocks
— Heroic
— Alpinestars
— Shoei
— Dunlop
