At the 89th Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, Chip Yates’ 240bhp electric superbike has smashed the electric motorcycle record beating the previous year’s time by over four minutes.

The bike is American’s self-built and self-funded electric racer. And it becomes the most power motorcycle of any kind to finish the grueling 12.42 mile mountain course. Earlier in year 2010, HM ElectroCat by a considerable margin set record of 16:55.849 and now the electric bike set new record putting in a final time of 12:50.094.

During the opening paved section of the course, Yates was reportedly in 9th position but during a central 2.6 mile stretch of dirt track, it suffered badly, delaying him by over a minute and resulting in a 30th place finish amongst the 112 competing bikes.

For the next year Yates is confident that his team will be able to achieve higher finish when the once fully-off-road course is due to be fully paved.

He said, “These split times show that once again, we have put the gas-powered bikes on notice that we can be a serious threat to the results of a premier race event. Next year with the pavement on my side, I’ll be looking for a top 10 or better result in the overall standings. We are a team of 3 volunteer engineers with support from our wonderful sponsors but with no outside funding and yet we are taking on the established motorcycle manufacturers by pure determination, ingenuity, and the ability to accept personal hardship and extremely long hours as part of our normal course of business.”