This weekend MotoElectra, piloted by none other than the owner Brian Richardson himself, took the ECTA LSR away from the the Buckeye team’s run earlier this fall.
I can’t tell the story any better than Brian did:
“On October 29th, 2011, the Moto Electra Team headed to Maxton, North Carolina for an attempt at the East Coast Timing Association’s Land Speed Record. Unfortunately, Thad’s flight got screwed up, and so we were all charged up but with no one to ride the motorcycle. Thad said that the time had come for me to try the bike (If Thad said jump off a cliff …). So I loaded my 215 pounds onto the bike for my rookie pass — my only pass. I was scared to death! We had a new head-wind by the time I was at the starting line. My biggest issue was forward vision when cramped into Thad’s seating position (my stomach seems to be in the way and my visor is pressed into the windshield).
Visor down and the track was mine — all very fast — but also slow motion. I thought the timing lights were just ahead of me so I began to get serious — better tuck & don’t lift. Unfortunately I had already passed the lights and the track starts to curve. Whoa! — BETTER SLOW DOWN!
Anyway, to make a long story short, 127.17765 mph on my first and only pass. Respectable I think. The East Coast Timing Association’s Land Speed Record for all electric now belongs to Moto Electra Racing. The old record was 112.34910 by Ohio State University. There was also a specially prepared gas powered Norton (from the 1970’s) on the track. His speed was also 127 mph. The same speed exactly — cool!
I have a whole new respect for what Thad Wolff and other racers do. It looks so easy as a spectator, but I couldn’t focus on anything past 100. I know that many of you have been much faster, but for me (at 52 years of age) this was a first. I wish we could have found out how much faster the bike would have gone with Thad at the controls. Clearly, it would have been in excess of 130 if only the wind had died down.
I realize that our machine is not the fastest in the country, but I do believe that it may be one of the more practical. It is street legal, has good range, reasonable weight, fast, and utilizes a safe voltage. “She’s a fine motorbike” and is now the fastest on the East Coast.
At this event we received many complements. One fellow said: “Wow! .. I thought it was a regular motorcycle. It’s not weird .. just a motorcycle that happens to be electric. Now I get it!”
Edit- Check out this awesome shot from the Facebook page by David Whealon, of DW Photos:
The Electric Chronicles: Power in Flux 