Scooter Sprinting Report

EAST KIRKBY – SEPTEMBER 11, 2016 A return to East Kirkby and the aptly named Lancaster Raceway, a former RAF airfield in Lincolnshire, for Round 10 of the Straightliners ¼ mile sprint championship.

Darrell Taylor reports on recent sprinting shenanigans.

This meeting had a smaller turnout of just seven scooters this time, all of which were Lambrettas (did they frighten the Vespas away?). The weather was good for the sprinters but offered no real benefits throughout the day from any tailwinds, which can play a big role in this sport.

It was good to see the return of Peter Bourn, bringing out his full bodied street Lambretta that goes by the name of ‘Little Nippa’ – a sprinting regular from a few years ago. The main attraction was an all-day battle of the full body street Lambrettas between Neil Pettit, Russ Shea and Gav Watson in the 14.1 second bracket class. They pushed each other on with top places, swapping constantly as the day progressed. Neil struggled a bit early on with rich jetting and a splutter, then at the last minute decided to swap out a chipped reed petal he’d found and the work paid off with a final run of 14.33 seconds. The three competitors separated by only tenths of a second, it was a close fought battle which they all enjoyed tremendously. Last time here the same contenders ran 14.21/14.33/14.72, but this time were running 14.33/14.42/14.46 which shows that two riders were about a tenth of a second slower at this meeting.

Richard Baker was out once again as a lone entry in the Top Scooter Class and was running very close to last meeting’s best of 13.52 seconds @ 96mph, this time doing 13.70 @ 94mph. Eric Cope on his full body street Lambretta put in an early run of 13.99 seconds, but then headed back to the pits with a top-end noise which proved to be a section of broken ring land. It didn’t touch the cylinder, but ended the day early for him having no replacement at hand. This left just Gav Watson in the 13.1 class to beat the time, which he did comprehensively, by running 13.52 seconds @ 94mph. This result saw Gav going ‘a tenth’ faster than his previous meeting, and therefore the only rider of the day bucking the ‘trend of the track’ with every other competitor being a tenth slower than the last visit. So Gav’s improving once again.

The three competitors separated by only tenths of a second, it was a close fought battle which they all enjoyed