Ohio State Buckeye Current Will Race In Pikes Peak 100th Anniversary
For the past six years, the Ohio State Buckeye Current team of students have taken on the challenge of building an electric motorcycle and competing with it at national and even international events. For 2016, the big news from Buckeye Current is that the team has been accepted to compete at the 100th anniversary of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb.
Buckeye Current is a student-led project team that designs and builds electric road-racing motorcycles from the Center for Automotive Research at Ohio State University. Though the team is rather young (both in terms of student age and overall age of the program), they’ve already compiled an impressive list of accomplishments. These include claiming an East Coast Timing Association land speed record in 2012, finishing in third place at the Isle of Man TT Zero race in both 2013 and 2014, and earning a second place finish in the Electric Modified Motorcycle class at Pikes Peak last year.
This year, the team has set its goals even higher; it wants to break 9:58 – the overall motorcycle course record for motorcycles. To do this, the team have upgraded its RW-3 racer’s cooling system, given it completely custom geometry based on computer aided design and analysis, fully redesigned the battery pack, and thoroughly overhauled the electronic management system.
Riding the motorcycle will be veteran rider Rob “The Bullet” Barber, an eight-year veteran of the Isle of Man TT with three podium finishes to his name.
To learn more about the team, visit the Buckeye Current website.
Troy's been riding motorcycles and writing about them since 2006, getting his start at Rider Magazine. From there, he moved to Sport Rider Magazine before finally landing at Motorcycle.com in 2011. A lifelong gearhead who didn't fully immerse himself in motorcycles until his teenage years, Troy's interests have always been in technology, performance, and going fast. Naturally, racing was the perfect avenue to combine all three. Troy has been racing nearly as long as he's been riding and has competed at the AMA national level. He's also won multiple club races throughout the country, culminating in a Utah Sport Bike Association championship in 2011. He has been invited as a guest instructor for the Yamaha Champions Riding School, and when he's not out riding, he's either wrenching on bikes or watching MotoGP.
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Good on the Buckeye Current.
Have they done away with the silly regulation that E-bikes that race the Pike's Peak have to have siren active? I mean, it is a RACE and I think everyone who attends/spectates knows it's a RACE and not be stupid enough to walk out in front of an E-Racer anyways. They ARE fairly loud once they are up to the speeds these guys can obtain.