Paul Green spoke to Dean Orton for the lowdown on the Casa Lambretta Team’s recent Lydden Hill race visit.

“Lydden is our favourite track as it’s the closest we get to a European track and has superb visibility as well,” Dean explained. But the Italian team had to cope with very limited testing opportunities which made the temperature differences initially hard to overcome as the temperature was somewhat different. “This caused us a few headaches with jetting as we had to guess, with there being no testing time at Lydden prior to the race meeting. This trip was a testing ground for our new motors and kits so after each race we stripped to check and alter as needed. With a one year complete lay off from racing, it took a bit to get back into the swing of things but it was great fun.”

The engines the Italians brought with them were all new units so the Casa team also had to experiment with gearing in a rapid learning curve. On the subject of riders Dean had to say: “Of our three riders, only Zani had continued to race auto scooters this year and Fuschini has only used a Lambretta once since last year. Rider Filippo ‘Benny’ Benini had never even sat on a Lambretta and we got the question ‘Which way do the gears go?’ from him just as he was setting off to race. He was a revelation on a Lambretta and will be part of the Team from now on. Seeing him set off last on the grid and come in second (later penalised to third place for overtaking on a yellow flag) was magical.

“The high points of the trip was coming back to the BSSO to race and meeting up with our friends, and seeing the fantastic race between Fuschini and Lee Bamber. Seeing all our riders dicing with the best British riders again was fabulous, the Brits have really picked up their pace and improved.” The Casa scooters were : 1. Casa Lambretta Racing Team: SSR265 Scuderia, 47bhp, Cyclone five-Speed, 34mm carb. Rider Luca Fuschini. 2. Casa Lambretta Racing Team: SSR250, 47bhp, Cyclone five-Speed, 34mm carb. Rider Luca Zani. 3. Casa Lambretta Racing Team: Zip 100cc running a new Casa Performance engine casing with external stud barrel kit (designed by Lorenz), 32bhp and over 100mph top speed. Rider Filippo Benini. 4. Team Europlast: SS225, 30bhp, Cyclone 5-speed, 34mm carb. Rider Damon Tunnicliffe. Bike No. 4 (Damon’s), apart from being used by him in the Group 6 races, it was also raced at least once by all the riders in the Open Class. Considering it is a road-going tuned scooter, it fared really well against the other wonderful machines.