The Mission R: Riding Rapp’s World Beater: RACER TEST
Alan Cathcart | June 19, 2012
It’s all in the lap times. As always. Because the stopwatch cannot lie.
In winning the U.S. MotoGP at Laguna Seca in July of 2011, Casey Stoner also set the fastest lap on his factory Honda RC212V at 1:21.673, at an average speed of 98.65 mph around the hillside Californian circuit. That same weekend, AMA Superbike rider Steve Rapp, riding the Mission R built in a converted fire station in nearby San Francisco by Mission Motors, won the TTXGP e-Power race for electric bikes so convincingly that he finished the eight-lap race no less than 39.9 seconds ahead of the second-place finisher, the MotoCzysz. Yes, the same MotoCzysz that six weeks earlier had won the Isle of Man Zero Emission TT race. But in smashing the existing MotoCzysz TTXGP lap record for Laguna Seca by more than 13 seconds, by setting the fastest lap in qualifying on race tires of 1:31.376 (at an average speed of 88.17 after being repeatedly speed trapped at over 130 mph along the relatively short finishing straight), Rapp came within 10 seconds of Stoner’s time – a time set on the world’s fastest, most sophisticated road racer powered by an internal combustion engine.
To read the entire story on the Mission R electric racer, click on the following link:
For more Cycle News Sport Bike motorcycle reviews, click
HERE.
