I'm interested. Here are my thoughts, not in any particular order.
In any form of racing, there is always two constituencies - the fun racers and the competitive ones who take it seriously. The trick is to work out which group to cater for, or how to cater for both groups. For instance, if you publish a set of rules, the first group will be upset if you then enforce them, or aren't flexible on the day. On the other hand, one of the worst things you can do to upset a competitive racer is to publish a rule and then do something different on the day. This is probably the aspect that needs most thinking about - basically how to get a broad appeal, without losing the key players.
100% agreed. Rules need to be set in stone, non-amendable after a certain date before the race, and the tech-inspection can make ZERO exceptions, or it's not a race worth racing in. Now, anything you can sneak past tech inspection, or anything not specifically banned by the rules is legit for the race IMO. Likewise, if someone wants to call someone out who has all ready passed through tech-inspection, they need to post up a sizable chunk of cash, even for E-bikes, at least $200-300 to call someone out for an additional tech-inspection/tear-down. As with all call-outs, if the tech inspection can't find the claimed violation, then the call-out money goes to the guy who got called out as an inconvenience/lost-prep-time fee.
Forget Road Racing. It raises all sorts of legal complications, and will make it all but impossible to get an international system together. It also means the organisation is spread out over a large area and communication is a problem. Roads are only good for treasure hunts and endurance events.
In the states, we call road racing what happens when cars run courses on tracks that have corners in both directions. The $20,000-$50,000 track rental costs would be hard to bare for an E-bike race.
I'm guessing you mean street racing, which I agree would be an unneeded and poor idea for e-bikes races.
Drag racing. For some reason this is popular in the colonies. Over here we can't understand why. Maybe its because all the action occurs in front of the grandstand near the hot dog stands. A lot of people in Europe think its because people in the USA haven't worked out how to make vehicles go round corners.
It's because Europe is filled with 99.99999% of cars that accelerate like a slug, and apparently lacks either the skills or desire to change it.
It's not about the hotdogs. Drag racing is maybe 10% about racing, and 90% about creative design, and months and months of work trying to seek out and apply every last little creative 0.5% helping advantage you can use your imagination and physics to come up with.
Drag racing is a race between the crewchief and engine development team on one side, and the crewchief and engine development team on the other side. It's 90% a technology/engineering competition, and 10% driver, who's only job is to not f*ck up the launch or miss a gear. It's kinda like a the opposite of road race, which is nearly entirely about driver skills.
The most promising format so far looks like racing on kart circuits.
I just got off the phone with my favorite local track to race Karts on. The normal rate is $900/hour for track rental, but he said it could do $700/hour for me because we're buddies.
I think being nearly silent, and non-destructive to the pavement, that we could just setup in some large parking lot we got permission to race in. This is how the local auto-cross clubs do it, and it seems to be an economical option for them.
A hill climb is another possible format. It is a popular format for cars in the UK and there is a number of tarmac hill climb venues.
I would LOVE a hill climb
Off road hill climbs or trials might be a good format for electric mountain bikes.
We need to distinguish between electric bikes and electric motorcycles. Keep it simple, for instance, functioning pedals and a maximum weight.
At this stage, let's not get into classes based on power, armature current, type or size of battery, etc. These are all too difficult. Keep to simple things like hub motor vs other types or different weight limits or bikes and trikes
I agree 100%. Maybe under 70lbs as-ridden, functional pedals, and it races as an electric bicycle.
Distance/duration. 10 minutes is enough. 20 to 30 minutes is too long. What I have most experience in is hovercraft racing, and there we have races of 10 mins or less and have lots of them at a race meeting. Multiple races is better for the guy who has a breakdown or a crash because he gets another chance. Its also more interesting for spectators as they don't need a commentator to explain it to them.
Agreed. Even an 8 minute race in a kart is physically and mentally exhausting, and begins to get repetitive for spectators.
Having multiple short races at a meeting instead of one long one could also bring battery charging into the equation.
One really neat thing about competing in an electric bike race is that you can hear what the crowd is shouting. You don't normally get that in motorsport.
lol, there was a time at the street races I wished I could have heard everyone shouting "FIRE" "FIRE" "FIRE" at me, but my open header was way too loud... lol. Costly.
Nick
