Thank you very much to Jensen, Brian, Shane, Hayley, Tom, Tucker, Troy, Francesco and the whole Lightfighter crew for bringing their brand new track day demo program to Laguna Seca with Fun Track Dayz this past weekend. This was the first ever track day demo event, but there are more to come, check out the schedule at
https://www.lightfighter-racing.com/ride-a-lightfighter/trackdaydemorides
It just so happened they were in the garage right next to mine. I was so stoked just get my eyes on these beautiful machines, imagine my delight when I learned I could get my butt in the saddle! This was a great opportunity to be one of the first people outside of the factory riders to test the brand new state of the art Lightfighter V3-RS electric supersport bike,
https://www.lightfighter-racing.com/v3-rs
I was very impressed just looking at the bikes, the build quality and spec is top notch. These are not some janky looking garage built contraptions, these are proper professional race bikes. Norcal racers Jayson Uribe and Brenden Ketelsen have been testing and developing these things and they are dialed in.
Based on my experience as a long time rider, racer, and former pro race mechanic, I am very nit-picky about stuff. I will usually find something I don't like about somebody's bike just looking at it, or for sure once I start touching the controls or whatever. Same with riders that have messy sloppy disorganized pit areas, that always looks like chaos and impending disaster to me. Not so here, everything looked and felt just right on the bikes and in the Lightfighter garage.
I got signed up and when it was my turn I showed up early for a pre-ride briefing. We had three ride modes, Warmup @ 70HP, Dry 1 @ 120HP, and Dry 2 @ 140HP. The actual racers get more power, race modes, qualifying mode, etc. No clutch, no shift lever. No rear brake pedal, the rear brake lever is on the left handlebar. Steel tubular frame, carbon tail section and seat unit. Adjustable offset triples, R1 swingarm. High spec Ohlins, Brembo, etc. Frames are built in Oregon and bikes are built right here in Northern California USA.
I took off out of the pits in Warmup mode and switched to Dry 1 halfway around my outlap. I was being very conservative in the corners, but when I got it stood up I got on the gas and it got going pretty good! I had already done a couple sessions on my Yamaha R9 and this felt comparable to that. But SO smooth and quiet, no engine noise or vibration, and no need to shift gears. Very interesting how nice it is to not have to deal with all that, leaving brains left over for everything else. The bike was very nimble yet very stable. After a few laps I went up and over Turn 1 pretty quick and it felt great, very confidence inspiring and I would sure love to get more laps on one at some point.
Kensai Matsudaira took one out later, and went zooming by me looking super fast, using the whole track like the pro rider he is. I spoke with him later and he had similar comments to mine. Each rider was interviewed right after getting off the bike, and asked to fill out a brief survey, an important part of the demo program is gathering feedback from lots of different riders. These folks are doing great work, and I look forward to following their progress!
OrangeCat Racing is running the naked version of this in MotoAmerica Super Hooligans and Josh Herrin just put it on the podium for the first time, racing against all the well established ICE bikes like the HD Pan America, Yamaha MT09, Ducati Streetfighter V2, etc.
