Mugen confirm TT Zero entry with Anstey and McGuinness
Japanese based Team Mugen has confirmed that it will make a dual assault on the electric bike class at the 2015 Isle of Man TT Races fuelled by Monster Energy.
Mugen has confirmed that their team will again be represented in the SES TT Zero Race by twenty-one time TT Race winner John McGuinness and outright lap record holder, New Zealand’s Bruce Anstey, who set the fastest ever lap around the Mountain Course, 132.298 mph (00:17:06.682), in last year’s Superbike Race.
Three qualifying sessions have been confirmed for this year’s SES TT Zero Race on Friday 5th, Saturday 6th and Monday 8th June with race day on Wednesday 10th June.
Team Mugen will participate with a machine named ‘SHINDEN YON’, which means “God of Electricity, number 4”. The machine has been newly developed to improve on last year’s ‘Shinden San’ model. ‘SHINDEN YON’ will be exhibited at the 2015 Tokyo Motorcycle Show, which will be held at Tokyo Big Sight in March, 2015.
The team made their TT debut in 2012, achieving a prestigious 104mph average lap speed in their debut season and at last year’s meeting John McGuinness raised the outright lap record for the Zero class to 117.336mph, (19:17.3) becoming the first rider to break 20 minutes for an electric bike with his team-mate Bruce Anstey following him home in 115.048. To date the pair are the only riders to have lapped the course in a time of under 20 minutes.
Akihiro Miyata, Mugen’s team Director, commented: “The challenge of participating in the Isle of Man TT electric motorcycle races, which is a new discipline to us and completely different from our core strengths as a manufacturer and developer of high-speed internal combustion engines, started in 2012 as our unique project to foster young engineers and conduct developments in a new area.
He continued: “We achieved our initial goal of 2014 which was to exceed an average speed of 115 mph (185 km/h) and in doing so captured the long-sought after victory, with a one-two finish for the team, in a time that beat the previous record lap record in the TT Zero Challenge class by more than one minute (00:19:17.3 lap).”
Mugen’s Satoshi Katsumata and Director Akihiro Miyata will represent the ‘Shinden Yon’ team on the Isle of Man.
