FIM e-Power at Le Mans: Should all but one bike have been disqualified?
April 26, 2010Watching this video of the first FIM e-Power race at Le Mans, I noticed that only one of the bikes had a flashing red light on the rear of the bike.
According to the Road Racing FIM e-Power International Championship Regulations, Section 2.4.8:
Power Indicator
When the vehicle is in a powered on state, there must be two clearly visible indicators, one light on the instrument panel and one light on the rear of the vehicle.The rear light must be red and visible from at least 10m away, from the side or rear, and must flash between 1 – 2 times /second on a 50% duty cycle.
Perhaps it is just a play of the lighting in the video, but at 1:18, the red flashing light of the black and silver bike is clearly visible. I see no other bikes with lights.
The TTXGP rules contain this requirement, put in place because of one of the inherent differences between electric motorcycles and those powered by internal combustion engines: there is no sound associated with a “live” electric bike at rest.
Should all of the bikes but the one with the clearly visible light been disqualified from the e-Power Le Mans race? I’ll leave that for the racing experts to debate.
