While attending the Skip Barber Superbike School, A&R Editor Jensen Beeler overheard a conversation between Lead Instructor Michael Czysz and a couple of students. As the students asked Czysz if he’d be at Seca to watch the Red Bull US GP, Czysz lamented that he would not be able to watch MotoGP at Laguna Seca because MotoCzysz would be racing that weekend. As some may remember the FIM’s e-Power Championship series has a round that is occurring at Laguna Seca in coordination with Dorna and the AMA. Czysz went on to pique out ears, confirming that MotoCzysz would be racing that weekend in the FIM e-Power Championship, with the rider yet to be determined.
Likely wanting to see how the grid would stack up at Infineon, Czysz wasn’t sure who would pilot his E1pc, and jokingly even said to us, “maybe I’ll ride it, maybe we’ll hire someone, it depends on the level of talent the other teams enlist. If someone hires Valentino Rossi to ride their bike…” Taking a moment’s pause Czysz continued, “Actually, then I would definitely ride it! I’d love to be on the same race track as Valentino. [Who wouldn’t, right? – JJB] “I could see him at the start and every time he lapped me.”
This slip of information isn’t exactly a huge surprise to us here at A&R, it’s long been speculated that the US rounds of TTXGP and e-Power would bring out the American-based electric motorcycle companies, since both Infineon and Laguna Seca are within a manageable traveling distance to the west-coast centric industry, these races are low-hanging fruit for these companies, whose presence is sure to bring in more private entries as well. Unfortunately we’ve now seen that Brammo and Misison were no-shows at Infineon, but we did see teams like Zero/Agni and Lightning at the event, which made for some great close racing.
We still don’t have confirmation of all the entrants attending these races, but it would be nice to see the Agni bike and Lightning (along with the other manufacturers) at Seca, so then we could truly see who is the team to beat in electric motorcycle racing.
Photo Courtesy of MotoCzysz
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