Scooter sprinting enters a new era
Scooter sprinting has dropped off the radar a little in recent years. The major event of the year, that the scene would build itself up for, was the Scooter Shootout which was held at the famous Elvington Airfield drag strip near York. Unfortunately it go
Darrell Taylor on sprinting shenanigans.
The scene had become overly diluted. Starting out with a simple set of rules and classes, it then doubled the available classes and then for the last event doubled again, including sub-classes for those carrying road legal documents .The available class rules, structure and information became difficult to locate and you could easily find an old set of rules, mistakenly download them and build a very expensive machine incorrectly. The rules weren’t always coherent or compatible with other scooter sport or even the regular sprint events leading up to the shootout. Even more frustratingly, assistance was offered early on to help with scrutineering/rule-writing and checking of machines for class compliance, but those parties for one reason or other couldn’t fulfil the role on a regular basis, thus leaving the organisers to pick up the pieces.
Without the relevant knowledge of scooter specifications and the time to check them on a very busy race weekend it was often taken on trust that each competitor would ensure their machine was compliant for the class they were entering. This was to bring this great event to an end as various machines entered did not comply, with some competitors entering cut down scooters into full bodywork classes, and entering race class scooters into road legal classes.
It created bad feeling throughout the paddock and the very British nature of not complaining (or doing so and being perceived as a bad loser) meant the organisers got it in the neck in private after the event, which then frustrated the competitors when the organisers failed to police their complaints, to a point where it unfortunately became more trouble than it was worth to continue on with the event. Sad times.
So what’s been happening in sprinting since…?
Well traditional scooter sprinting rules were dropped and became open bracket racing where a set time of 13.1, 14.1, 15.1, 16.1 etc. classes was set up as used by the motorcycle classes which, with such a vast variety of available machines, is too difficult to categorize.
For the scooter sprinters this means that Lambrettas now race each other regardless of capacity or chassis style, road legal or race, against Vespas or any other geared scooter, but also along with any other modern automatic scooter too, in whatever form. So essentially, instead of the machine type defining your class, it’s your machine’s performance potential that puts you into a relevant time bracket. You choose your bracket when you enter (e.g. 14.1), and if you have sprinted before you will know a guideline time. If no time information is known, you pick a conservative (higher) time bracket, and if you go quicker you will then find yourself promoted to the next (lower) bracket, this scenario is known as a breakout. Here lies a slight problem with the mindset of a sprinter or racer.
There is potentially less desire to go faster or develop the machine further – many have found themselves on the very edge of a class time bracket for example a 15.1 class man doing regular 15.15 15.2 passes, may find themselves rolling off and slowing down to stay in class and not breakout, in order to collect championship points. It essentially encourages people to turn up to event after event with the intention of going no faster than they have
gone before. A cruel twist recently saw two Lambretta sprinters ‘break out’ in the final. The chap who took the win in terms of crossing over the finish line first and setting the fastest time of the two actually lost! It seems very alien and uninspiring so a few of the guys just turn up with the intention of going as fast as they can without worrying about trophy hunting in what’s sometimes only a class of one or two at times.
There’s a few who self-impose gentlemen’s agreement rules where the goal is to be the fastest full-bodied road legal Lambretta, for example. For the 2016 AGM, an invite was made to the competitors to structure a change of format or rules as a proposal if a change was required but chose to see out another year or just lacked time and inclination to formulate a new class structure, meaning 2016 sees no Scooter Shootout on the calendar. So what happened to all those sprint scooters that were previously built?
There must have been 60-70 of them which used to turn up and it really was building momentum. Scooter sprinting could and should have a stronger future. With the right input/class structure/ conformity checks in place, I’m sure it could grow sufficiently to bring back the annual Scooter Shootout event.
How could a new format look?
Well, an acronym that sticks in my mind is KISS. It stands for ‘Keep It Simple Stupid’ and as a rule writer for an old race series we liked to believe if a rule could not be practically policed then leave it open, e.g. a rule might require standard cylinder head volume, but it would be impossible to check – stripping down and buretting 20 heads for conformity at the side of a race track on a busy race weekend just isn’t going to happen.
So you’d end up with 18 legal bikes and a few cheating with 18 disgruntled competitors. If it’s open then everyone is equal regardless of who is doing what and the same opportunity exists for all. The scooter sprint scene whittles down to, and easily recognises, two types of scooter: full bodied and not full bodied. There are also old class rules agreed upon, with engine capacities up to 210cc, and then 210-260cc.
There are obvious differences between classic geared scooters and modern auto scooters and some like to see full road legal machines. The road legal element becomes complex as some are cut down but still road legal – offering obvious aerodynamic and weight saving advantage over full bodied road legal machines, so rules should be applied in the interests of fairness. Although race fuels are allowed in sprinting it’s not what you would expect a road legal class scooter to be running on. Previously this was impossible to police due to the prohibitive expense of fuel testing.
An easy fix is the presence of a five litre can of forecourt unleaded fuel, and a can of race-legal Avgas to hand, for officials to randomly issue/enforce a rider to use per meeting. This could easily resolve any issues where it’s thought race fuel is illegally used. Then there are different manufacturers – Vespa/Lambretta and many others – plus the potential to pull in machines from other forms of scooter sport, particularly BSSO circuit racing scooters, so it would make sense to have a coherent set of rules which leaves space for these machines.
Then come the special builds with hybrid motors/motorbike engines etc. These should be catered for and have been placed under the name ‘oddity class’ in the past which is any machine that doesn’t fall into any of the other classes and is used as a sin bin for machines to be thrown in that are attempting to break the rules. What is of most importance is equality, and that rules are applied fairly. Failure to do this is discrimination.
Scootering aims to bring news of as many aspects of scooter sport to its pages as possible so expect to see results and sprinting info more regularly.
SCOOTER ¼ MILE SPRINT MEETING – EAST KIRKBY – August 2016
The old RAF airfield in Lincolnshire was the venue for round 8 of the Straightliners quarter mile sprint championship. It had a good turnout of 11 scooters, nearly all Lambrettas with the exception of a lone automatic Gilera. The weather was good for the sprinters but with almost still conditions offered no real benefits throughout the day from any tailwinds. All the scooters were of good pedigree occupying time brackets of 12.1-15.1
It was a regular meeting times-wise for most, but Eric Cope on his full steel bodied road legal Lambretta, who is running a heavily modified Super Monza power plant, hoped to take points in the 13.1 class but instead managed a personal best ever time of 13.09 on this machine, which meant he broke out of his class by doing so – moving him into 12.1 class. He also nearly ended his day in tears, just managing not to flip his scooter with an almost vertical wheelie off the start line on one of his runs.
It was great to see Richard Baker back out on his ‘Frightened Chicken’ machine and set the fastest 13.1 class time on his methanol powered Sprinter. James Scott at his first meeting running on Mitchell Betts’ Gilera Runner 172 auto, quickly got to grips with it and got quicker throughout the day, but not quite good enough to beat Gav Watson in the final who was riding a Lambretta RB252 sprinter that he is getting very good at now handling. He also runs a full bodied road legal Lambretta TS1 225 providing regular competition to both Neil Pettit and Russ Shea in the 14.1 class.
Neil Pettit set the day’s fastest 14.1 class time at 14.21 on his RB200 full steel bodied road legal Lambretta but lost out in the final race off to Russ Shea who took his full bodied Lambretta TS1 to another 14.1 class win.
Locals and East Kirkby regulars Lloyd Walker and Paul Sendall both had good results, Lloyd took his new full bodied scoot to 14.54 at 91 but doesn’t enter the bracket class instead entering as a ‘run what you brung’ competitor, Paul runs a well-developed fully cut-down sprinter, using a Lambretta Rapido at about 205cc, thus providing a good power to weight ratio with his small size taking him to a 14.02 second 94mph run.
Long time sprinter Darryl Ward was out on his methanol powered sprinter, Rapido Lambretta at about 238cc with his good friend Paul Priestley on his RB-Lambretta equipped sprinter.
There’s a real mixed bag of engine and machine types available to see at these meetings and the guys are happy to discuss and assist anyone who shows an interest in the paddock area where you can browse around the various machines including all the motorbikes there you’ll find some lovely classic two-strokes that these guys love to line up alongside to try and beat the bikers and regularly do. It’s well worth a trip out to an event or drag your sprinter out of retirement and join them, I know there’s lots out there sitting idle…