The UK’s Darvill Racing Team will be fielding a pair of Brammo Empulse TTX electric motorcycles in the Southern 100 Road Races, to be held on the Isle of Man in July. While one of the bikes will race in its stock trim, the other one will have racing-grade enhancements.

The Brammos will be competing with gas-burning bikes in several events. “[We will be] competing in the Pre-TT, TT, Southern 100, Classic TT, Manx Grand Prix, ThundersportGB and Andreas Championships. We have committed to a number of international races and have some individual and diverse one-off events planned,” said Darvill Team principal Alex Aitchinson. “We are extremely pleased to be given the opportunity to be the first team to compete with ICE machines in a pure road race event anywhere in the world.”

“Since the first Southern 100 was run in 1955, the club has always been progressive in its thinking and this year is no exception as we will witness the very first motorcycle race which will see ‘conventional’ racing machines competing with and against electric powered machines,” said Derek Nicholson, President of the Southern 100 Club.

Astute Charged readers may be wondering how this can be described as the “first” electric versus ICE matchup. Electric bikes have competed with dinosaur burners on several occasions, most notably last summer, when a Lightning motorcycle took the overall win at Pikes Peak. However, Electric Race News carefully parsed the statement, and it turns out that this will be the first such race to be sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM).

Source: Electric Race News, autoevolution