Chip Yates takes electric superbike to Bonneville Salt Flats for land speed racing

; Date: July 20, 2018

Tags: Chip Yates »»»» Electric Motorcycles

After going to the Miracle Mile for an unofficial speed record, Chip Yates entered the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb.

Chip Yates Bonneville Preview Video - 4 FIM World Records!

This is a 2-minute teaser highlight reel summarizing the incredible 2011 Bonneville BUB Speed Trials sanctioned by the FIM and the AMA, where Chip Yates, Robert Ussery, and the SWIGZ.COM Pro Racing Team collected a history-making 4 FIM Official World Land Speed Records on one bike! FIM World Records are internationally recognized as the pinacle of record-setting and allow record-holders to say "World's Fastest", they are also the most difficult to achieve, with strict rules on everything from the bike to the allowable winds, and require a flying mile average speed in one direction to be immediately followed by a flying mile average speed in the opposite direction within 2-hours on the same day, those two average speeds are then averaged to arrive at the Official World Record. Top speed achieved was "only" 200.7mph due to battery problems, but the team left the salt flats extremely happy and Chip Yates announced his retirement of the electric superbike and also of himself from professional motorcycle racing, leaving on a very high note!

Chip Yates Bonneville World's Fastest Electric Motorcycle Video

August 30, 2011 FIM Official World Record for World's Fastest Electric Motorcycle, Bonneville Salt Flats.

NOTE: Official world records require two runs in the same day, in opposite directions, on the same course, WITHIN 2 HOURS of each other and the World Record speed is actually the average speed through the flying mile in one direction, averaged again with the opposite direction's fying mile average speed!

The strict FIM rules allow inadequate time to fully recharge the battery pack in the impound area between opposite direction runs and this means much slower than expected speeds are reached but with the help of SWIGZ Electric Engineering genius Robert Ussery, Chip still coaxes the 258 horsepower electric bike to exceed 200 MPH in this video on the way to collecting 8 Official FIM World Records, 4 AMA National Records, and 4 AMA National Championship #1 Plates in the 2011 Bonneville event.

The batteries, which were designed and spec'd for roadracing (not the sustained 600 amp current draws at Bonneville), have trouble with voltage sag and at several points you can hear Chip's software cutting power to the bike because the 450 volt bus has sagged too low and the 108 lithium-ion polymer cells are in danger of undervoltaging themselves and blowing up.

Note Chip takes a very liesurly start to avoid sagging the batteries more than necessary on an overly long run-up, instead waiting until approx 1.5 miles before the flying mile speed trap entrance before gradually accelerating to 200 MPH! The markers flying by are at 1/4 mile intervals, the markers that have extra flags denote the entrance and exit of the flying mile. Note Chip gets a little wobble at 200 MPH in one run but nothing too serious and he was able to set the record!

Chip and his team have retired this incredible electric superbike and donated it to the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, and the team is now developing and building an electric aircraft for Chip to pilot to some major, over the ocean world records! More info on the electric airplane forthcoming at www.flightofthecentury.com

David Herron

David Herron is a writer and software engineer focusing on the wise use of technology. He is especially interested in clean energy technologies like solar power, wind power, and electric cars. David worked for nearly 30 years in Silicon Valley on software ranging from electronic mail systems, to video streaming, to the Java programming language, and has published several books on Node.js programming and electric vehicles.