The Lightning Story: Chapter 3 – Setting records, racing and establishing a winning tradition.

In 2010, we entered the new North American Champions TTXGP Zero Emissions series.  This was the inaugural year and we raced in four events.  In the first race in Sonoma, there was an issue with the lean angle – scraping the body with the suspension.  We worked with RaceTech and they got us back on track for the rest of the season.

• 2^nd place  Infineon Raceway,  Sonoma California
• 1^st place Road America Raceway, Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin
• 1^st place Mosport Raceway, Ontario Canada
• 1^st place  Virginia Intnl Raceway, Southern Virginia (here’s a video from VIR)

We dominated the series after fixing the handling problem in the first race.  All the other races we won handily and in some cases lapped the second-place bikes during the races.

2010  Land Speed Record 173.038mph – Bonneville (176.388 top speed)

When we visited Bonneville in 2009, it was a learning experience for us.  We had a great time, but did not come home with a record.  Our goal for 2010 was to set the record.  The first day of testing we were just doing 160s and we felt that we needed to go faster to set the record… we needed more HP.  Paule Thede our rider (http://mylifeatspeed.com/tag/paul-thede/) knew a shop in Salt Lake City where we could dyno the bike.  He got us pumped up and we drove for two hours to test the bike (BTW, Paul is a great motivational speaker).  We worked all night until we got the right tune and ultimately found an extra 30HP.  This was what we needed.  We drove two hours back and arrived in time the next day to go out and set the record – 173.038 mph.

 

We used all the racing experience we gained in 2010 to build the next generation of bikes in 2011 that were 100lbs lighter and had 50-60 more HP.  This would carry us through the 2011-2012 seasons and our next chapter.