As those that have followed our story likely already know, Lightfighter is named after Lightfighter Drive on coastal Hwy US 1 on the way to Monterey and Laguna Seca Raceway. Years spent traveling to this iconic racetrack etched in my mind the feeling when I passed the road sign and knew the destination was near. This year would be our 4th competing with Lightfighter at the world-famous venue, so we were quickly running out of excuses for finding a setup that our racers could use to maximize the performance of our custom-built electric machines.
Troy was back in the saddle, of course, but this year felt different with new rider Jayson Uribe infusing some fresh enthusiasm and a heavy dose of speed to go with it. Showing what he could do alongside what the bike is capable of was pushing everyone on the team to step it up. Coming off a challenging, but rewarding weekend with AFM at Thunderhill, expectations were sky high to keep the momentum going.
We shared garage space with our friends at Kramer Motorcycles, who had brought a few of their KTM-powered track bikes along with racer/journalist Rennie Scaysbrook. Camaraderie was high, with just the slightest tinge of some healthy competitiveness! The Kramer 890RR machine is a great benchmark for us as we develop Lightfighter. It's another purpose-built race bike with a chromoly steel frame built with an internal-combustion engine producing very similar peak power to our electric drivetrain, so we're always interested to see what kind of lap times that package can produce. Boulder Motorsports was there with some fast Ducati-powered Pierobons and MotoAmerica pro rider Stefano Mesa. And so, the stage was set for an epic weekend...
Friday rolled around with the usual anticipation ahead of the opening practice. “Are all the fasteners tight? Did we resolve all the issues from the last race round? Does the team have their heads in the game?” As the sessions unfolded, we started to see some positive signs, though. Both riders were lapping in practice in the low 30s, which we would’ve only seen on race day in years past. It helped that the infamous morning mist at Laguna lifted earlier than usual during the race weekend, which made for pretty consistent track conditions.
A quick recap of our prior race… We ended up destroying a DC-DC converter in Friday’s practice due to the immense heat at Thunderhill and were forced to run our race day swapping one good component between two bikes. That damage was, of course, repaired, but we encountered a related problem with the glass fuse on the unit on Jayson’s bike repeatedly blowing on track. We were also encountering a tricky situation with one of the small contactor relays within the battery welding closed on occasion, preventing me from being able to shut the bike down completely without pulling the main battery disconnect. Luckily, I did have a spare relay with me this time and while fuses got us through the practice day, a replaced relay that evening ended up being the real fix. I must say that I really appreciate Jayson's patience with the team when we encounter these technical issues. He never lets himself get stressed out, which helps everyone to keep a clear head and get the issue sorted as quickly as possible...
There weren’t a lot of changes needed to the setup of either bike, with Jayson trying a new stiffer rear spring rate to help match the direction of going stiffer on the front since the opening round. The change was positive and we were mostly chasing small improvements on the pre-load and damper clicker settings for the remainder of the weekend. Similarly, Troy was riding with his preferred spring rates and required little in the way of changes throughout the weekend. His biggest challenge was that we did not have the ideal rear sprocket for Laguna. We came up one tooth short on the ideal gearing and this left him giving up some drive out of the tighter corners. With only one gear reduction out to the rear wheel, nailing the ratio for a given track is critical on electric bikes to maximize performance.
After that initial technical gremlin on Jayson's bike resolved with the relay swapped and a fresh fuse in the DC-DC converter (at the correct value) it seemed like we were looking good for race day. Just to play it safe, I opted to enter Jayson in the Formula Lightning Extreme class rather than the stacked SOT1 class on Saturday morning just to be sure he wouldn't be in the middle of a dogfight if the fuse blew again. Fortunately, the fix held and we were comfortable slotting Jayson alongside Troy into the stacked field in Formula Thunder later in the day.
Jayson started in 16th on the grid and blasted his way through the pack to a 2nd place finish overall behind Stefano Mesa on his Boulder Motorsports Pierobon Ducati. Troy started in 6th and finished in 6th to give us 2 strong top 10 finishes. Jayson's 1:30.794 lap on lap 4 of the race was also a new record for an electric motorcycle at Laguna Seca, beating out Mesa's time on the Energica SuperHooligans bike set in 2023. Lightfighter now holds EV motorcycle lap records at Buttonwillow Raceway, Thunderhill Raceway, Laguna Seca, and Barber Motorsports Park. Not too shabby...
While I was happy with the performance of both riders in Formula Thunder, we were in store for a really fun race in SOT2 with Troy going head-to-head with his good buddy Rennie Scaysbrook on the aforementioned Kramer GP890RR. Troy started 6th on the grid and used his 4 seasons of experience to launch the heck out of the bike off the line. He came across the line on lap 1 with a 2.5 second lead on the field, including a hard-charging Rennie Scaysbrook, who was working his way forward from starting 13th. Rennie was clawing back time on Troy and as they came around for the penultimate lap, it looked inevitable that Rennie would make the move to pass Troy. However, when we finally caught glimpse of the leaders again out of the corkscrew, Troy was still in the lead with Rennie nowhere close. What we couldn't see, but heard about later, was that going into Turn 2, Rennie had tried to make the pass, but ended up running wide, essentially gifting the win to Troy. And so, we finished the day with 2 wins (Formula Lightning Extreme, SOT2) a 2nd, and a 6th (Formula Thunder). Not a bad day at all for the Lightfighter Racing team!
The team were all smiles at the awards ceremony at the end of the day. Troy and I both brought (coerced?) our kids out to experience the weekend and I hope this is something they remember when they're older...
Sunday was more or less a rinse and repeat of Saturday's race schedule, although the morning got off to a slower start with the infamous Monterey marine layer sticking around a couple of hours longer in the morning. With those conditions in the morning and being fairly happy with the performance, we opted to keep most settings on the bikes as they were on Saturday and just let the riders do their thing. Jayson took home another podium in the morning's SOT1 race, finishing in second to Stefano Mesa. Both riders also had a good scrap with Rennie in the Formula Thunder and SOT2 races, with Rennie edging out both Lightfighters in those races. Seeing 2 Lightfighters battling at the front of the SOT1 race was something I'll remember for a long time!
So we ended what felt like one of our most successful race weekends at Laguna Seca with 2 wins, four 2nd place finishes, a new EV motorcycle lap record, and the team enjoying the heck out of the weekend. I'll never stop being impressed with how much a small team that's united in passion can accomplish. It instantly causes you to forget the hours of frustration and work it took to get there... ;) On that note, it's onward to our last event for the season at Barber Motorsports Park for the AHRMA finale in October. Rumor is that V3 may make it's racing debut... !
Thanks, as always, for those that follow our story and support our cause. I've got some swag I'll finally get up on the site in the off-season and I plan to get the riders to sign some posters at Barber that I'll have up as well. Special thanks to Robert from Skwidmedia, Josh Alvarez, and Powell Browne who shot the amazing photos (and so many more) in this blog post.
In the event anyone missed it, here's the awesome video edits Robert put together from the weekend:
Amazing work all! Can't wait to see the bike in the flesh for the first time at Barber!