Shawn Higbee (22) and Michael Barnes (80) raced in May at Infineon Raceway in the TTXGP U.S. Championships, marking the first-ever zero-carbon motorcycle race in the United States. Higbee took the victory. (Mike Finnegan photo)

The days of the gas-powered internal combustion engine are numbered. It looks more and more like electric power is going to be the green technology that’s going to win out. The slew of e-motorcycle races this summer show that while still early in the game, battery technology is gaining by leaps and bounds.

The question for racing fans is will we embrace battery-powered electric racing motorcycles?

Even if they advance to the point that e-motors equal or better gas engines in terms of power, the obvious issue remains: How can e-bikes replace the sound of a gas engine? The answer is they won’t. Even megawatt racing e-bikes are going to be essentially silent, so if electricity is our future we’re going to have to come to terms with the lack of sound.

There is a school of thought that the louder the motor, the more exciting. MotoGP bikes are the loudest motorcycles I know of (perhaps eclipsed in decibels for short bursts by drag racing machines) and yet even those have quieted down in recent years. I remember Valentino Rossi asking Yamaha to make the M1 quieter, because it was so loud he couldn’t concentrate. I’ve stood next to the old Yamaha M1 or any generation of Ducati’s MotoGP bikes when they were started and I wondered if my ears would ever recover from the assault. Point being, there seems to be a point of diminishing returns when it comes to ultra-loud motors.

Modern-day Superbikes seem more muted than the 1980s versions. So the trend seems to be heading towards quieter motorcycles. This is certainly the case with motocross bikes as well.

I think our ears will tune into other sounds when the gas engine is gone. The sound of brakes activating, tires squealing, maybe even riders yelling at one another or whooping in delight under their helmet.

I remember the old Honda 500 Interceptor Series. Those bikes had to be nearly stock, including the exhaust system. When it was just stock Interceptors on the track things were eerily silent. The motors sounded like sewing machines on steroids, not really loud at all. But when a pack of Interceptors came through you could definitely hear the clunks of downshifts, the scrubbing sound of tires straining under braking and cornering. I even heard Doug Polen make the tires absolutely squeal like crazy on his little Honda – like a car drifting through a corner.

Being a traditionalist I still think it will be tough to replace the sounds produced by various configurations of gas motors. Think about the smooth V-Twin vibrato, the high-pitched roar of an inline four, or the other-worldly resonance of MotoGP bikes. Then there’s the occasional flame shooting out from an exhaust, so gas motors can even provide visual stimulation.

But time moves on and e-bikes are likely the future of racing. Can we embrace the whoosh? Time will tell. I for one won’t be closed minded on the subject.