Looking Towards The Future: Supercross Plans To Add An Electric Dirt Bike Class
The familiar braaap of the KTM 50 SX two strokes that the little
ones compete on in the
KTM Junior Racing program during Supercross events will
possibly be replaced with the nearly silent whiz of electric
motorcycles. According to an article posted by TechCrunch,
Supercross Director of Operations, Dave Prater, is hoping to debut
a new EV class in the near future, starting with the Junior Racing
program.
If you'll recall, KTM announced a 50cc equivalent EV kid's dirt bike back in November of last year when they introduced the KTM SX-E 5. The electric dirt bike is based around a 48 V lithium ion- BLDC Motor with 84 Lithium-Ion cells capable of putting out a max of 5 kW of power and 13.8Nm of torque.
The Junior Racing Program enables seven and eight year-old boys and girls to compete on the same Supercross tracks the pros race on. With about 10 races taking place across the country each season, this series is a great opportunity for budding young racers to experience the thrill of riding a professional race track in front of packed stadiums full of cheering fans. According to KTM the SX-E 5 has a ride time of about 25 minutes when put to use by fast riders so that should be plenty of juice to get the competitors around track for the three lap races.
KTM has been the sponsor of the Junior Racing program for more
than 15 years and while KTM will still be the sponsor, they haven't
confirmed that their electric SX-E 5 will replace the two-stroke
50 SX for the Junior series this coming season.
We've seen electric dirt bikes compete in events before, most notably Josh Hill competed aboard an Alta Redshift MX in the 205 class of the Red Bull Straight Rhythm in 2016 finishing 4th overall. And the who could forget when Hill rode a Redshift MX to victory over one of the greatest dirt bike racers ever, Ricky Carmichael, at the 2017 Geneva Supercross Championship.
Those were one off races however, if things go as expected, this will be the first all-electric dirt bike class for the Supercross series. It's possible we could see the KTM SX-E5 make its racing debut at the Monster Energy Cup in October, according to Prater. Hopefully everything falls into place and we'll get to see these what the little tykes can do on these exiting new electric dirt bikes.
Source: TechCrunch
