Team Agni - Isle of Man TTXGP Teams take practice laps at Jurby race track, 2009

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Agnimotors visits the Goodwood Festival of Speed

Team Agni Rider Robert 'Bullet' Barber with Lewis Hamilton at the Goodwood Festival of Speed

How did it feel being part of the Goodwood festival of speed?
I was really honoured to be invited to such a prestigious event and it exceeded all my expectations.

How did the bike perform?
The AGNI X01 was awesome and faultless as usual. Cedric had changed the gearing so it was nice to experience the bike with a little more acceleration

What are peoples reactions to the bike?
Famous fans?
The biggest Shock was meeting Lewis Hamilton and him being very impressed with the bike and that he had been reading about it. Kevin McCloud Murrey Walker and Mick Doohan where also very impressed with the bike

Crowd/competitors reaction?
People find the concept of an electric bike funny, but after they had seen the bike run up the hill they where truely amazed

Personal high-light?
It has to be meeting Lewis Hamilton & Mick Doohan and the last run up the hill where I had my knee down at most corners

What's next for team Agni?
We are talking about a number of things at the moment and trying to get some strong backing so that we can become the world champions next year and also get a 100mph average lap at the Isle of Man. In the near future we are planning on racing the AGNI X01 against some petrol bikes before the end of the session.

Map of Isle of Man Mountain course Isle of Man Mountain course.

The course is 37.733 miles (60.72 km) and the start/finish-line is on the A2 Glencrutchery Road in Douglas. The racing circuit is based on a everyday used public roads on the Isle of Man including the primary A2 Douglas to Ramsey Road, A1 Douglas to Peel Road, A3 Castletown to Ramsey Road and the primary A18 Mountain Road. The highest point of the course is on the primary A18 Mountain Road between the Bungalow and Hailwood's Rise at spot height 422 meters (1,384 feet) above sea level.

Qualifying practice lap

On Tuesday 9th June 2009 TTXGP competitors took grid position at the start/ finish line for the first of the two qualifying laps. The rules required that in order to qualify the lap must be completed in fifty minutes or less. The competitors were signalled to start at ten second interval.

Robert Barber starts qualifier lap Our rider Robert ‘Bullet’ Barber was the fourth to be signalled to start. Rob was the first to reach and pass the Sulby speed trap at an amazing speed of 102 MPH. Which was about 10 mph faster than the next.

Our rider Rob made history when he finished first and turned the fastest lap of the 37.733 mile, Isle of Man mountain course at 26 minutes, 41 seconds which was a good 5 minutes 6 second faster than the next team. His average over the course was 84.819 mph.

“ This is an amazing bike. It felt so good going round the course and handling of the bike is just perfect, it felt just like the handling on my petrol race bike GSXR600.” says Rob Barber.

The second qualifier was on Wednesday 10 June 2009. After raising the standard from the first qualifier Rob was confident with the bike’s handling and was very excited for round 2. The competitors were signalled to start as soon as they were ready. We were the first approaching the grid so Rob was the first off from the start/finish line.

Rob was quite slower through the Sulby speed trap with a recorded speed at 98 mph. But with a quality rider, such as Robert Barber his recorded lap time was 26:30.17 amazingly, about 11 seconds faster than his recorded lap time of yesterday and round 3 minutes faster than the next competitor. He averaged 85.417 which is 0.6 mph faster than yesterday and around 8 mph averaged speed faster than the next rider.

Race day Friday 12th June 2009.

Without making any alteration to the bike we made our way to scrutineering where the bike is inspected and weighed. The bike weighed in at 201kg around 10-15 kilograms lighter than we expected.

Rob took grid position in 12th and awaited for the signal to start. The team riders were all signalled to start with ten second intervals.
As he did throughout week in practise Rob was quick off the line and was riding very fast, He was catching up and overtaking the riders infront. He went through Sulby speed trap at 97.8mph and is overall average speed was 87.4mph from a standing start .
Rob finished 1st and to amazement to all of the teams and the spectators around the isle of man, his lap time was 25 minutes 53 seconds. About 3minutes ahead of second placed rider.

Another outstanding moment for team Agni came when we reached our target before the race of beating the 50cc lap record.

“This is was fantastic, best experience of my life. I was 100% behind this, right from the start” Rob Barber.

Isle of Man TTXGP Teams take practice laps at Jurby race track, 2009

We bought a donor Suzuki GSXR 600 in April 2009 and started working on converting the bike to electric. With the batteries not yet installed we made our way to the Isle of Man on Thursday 28th May 2009. We finally completed all the battery and electrical connections on Tuesday 2nd May, the day of the first practice at Jurby airfield.

On Wednesday 3rd June 2009 we had our first test with Kokam’s lithium polymer batteries installed in the Suzuki GSXR 600. The team rider, Robert Barber, had never ridden this particular converted bike or any other electric motorcycles before. This first test run at Jurby was ridden without the bikes fairings on and Robert looked very comfortable taking the corners at high speeds.

He was reaching speeds of around 95MPH with lap times averaging 1minute 29 seconds on a 1.7 mile circuit.

“ The bike was really handling great from start till end, the combination of Agni Motors, Suzuki chassis and Kais suspension works extremely well” said Robert Barber, Team Rider.

Second test run was on Thursday 4th June, with the bike’s fairings now fitted. To the amazement of the track marshals, TTXGP competitors and “petrol heads” standing by spectating, Robert Barber achieved the quickest recorded lap time of 1:25, which was a whole five seconds faster than the rest of the pack. He was reaching speeds of 100 to 105MPH. Robert was able to get the bike down so low in the corners that his elbows were knocking down cones and his knees were picking up grass from the side of the track. He did a total of 23 laps from a 98% charged battery, equivalent to 39.1 miles.

“ The first test at Jurby was successful. We made some small alterations and were straight into a good pace on our second test run; we were five seconds faster than anyone else” said Robert Barber, Team Rider.

Our third and final test at Jurby was on Friday 5th June and our plan for this test was to check the endurance of the bike on a full battery charge, before we go ahead with our qualifying and main race. Cedric asked Robert to try a few techniques which would help him conserve some battery power. Robert did 24 laps in one continuous run which is an equivalent to 40.8 miles.

“ The Team Agni bike is remarkably similar to my Suzuki GSXR 600 race bike. The only difference is that this bike doesn’t have engine braking or a clutch” said Robert.

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