A WORD F ROM MIKE ( COSMICK) HAYMAN
Many things have changed since my days of racing. To be honest there isn’t much that is the same. However one thing that is the same is the paddock atmosphere. I have fabulous memories of how friendly and helpful everyone was. We were all competing against each other out on track but in the paddock we always tried to help one another and to this end I feel the same exists today.
As for the bikes… well, there were no automatics, no tyre warmers, no grippy tyres, no external disc brakes, no special dampers, no aluminium cylinders, the list goes on. I am very impressed with the Production Class, it probably resembles the class that I competed in which was Group 4. We had to use Lambretta cast iron cylinders and were not allowed to increase the number of ports although tuning and porting was allowed. The Production Class is exciting with nearly exactly the same engine build and restricted to standard six-pole stator plates without advance/ retard. The specials class is interesting as many choose to have relatively standard frames with legshields. But the engines are amazing and making serious horsepower. My bike made around 27hp which is around the same as the production engines but the specials are making nearly twice that figure and talking of wheelspin out of corners, just unheard of in my day. The automatics also blow me away with laptimes under 50 seconds. I was never a fan of autos but you have to admit they are incredibly fast. Scooter Racing years were undoubtedly the best years of my life for friendship and competitiveness. I spoke to Ron Moss on Saturday and he echoed the same. We both went into motorcycle racing for a while but the paddock atmosphere was never the same and it lacked something that the scooter paddock had. My impression is that time has moved on, rules have been changed, tyres and suspension have improved, brakes are much better too but the nice thing is that scooter racing is still alive and kicking and long may it do so.