All revved up with no place to go!
It’s been a dull year so far, but is there a small oasis of hope on the horizon?
British Historic Racing is the main organisation which BSSO scooters race with, and they have had to cancel the remaining meetings for this year, so at the time of writing there are going to be limited opportunities to see any scooters racing on track. For many, the very real fear of there being zero opportunity to race this year led to one of our own members offering racers a chance to get on track via his established car racing series. So mid-August, scooters will once again be joining the Time Attack series for a weekend at Cadwell Park. In September the second scooter endurance race will go ahead at the Teesside circuit, and at the moment that is all we have that is solid.
I’m picturing the enthusiastic racers looking like kids with miserable faces pinned against the window waiting for the storm to pass so they can go out and have playtime. Up and down the country there are lads (and a lass) with new scooters, paint jobs, helmets, leathers, all revved up... just waiting to go. But of course racing is a very expensive business and with so many people hit very hard financially, there will be others who will simply have to mothball racing plans. And of course, there are many who simply feel unsafef tto beb mixingii withith othersth whilehil thithis virus is still very much around.
Every year we have huge excitement going into a new race season, with riders changing classes, new riders taking to the track for the first time and rivalries to renew up and down the grid. The racing family is very close and have missed getting together. Darlington Race Team have even been having Zoom get-togethers on weekends when they would have been together racing. They have even invited rival riders to join in, just like the real thing when riders pop into each other’s gazebos with a beer at 11pm! Hence Stuart Day joining the DSC Zoom call until the early hours.
Previous championship winners Replay RacingRa were due to have a big year with thr ree top riders all racing in the same tea am across two classes as well as a new rid er joining production class. DSC have new w paint jobs and a new rider. So it looks lik e it will be 2021 before we get to enjoy a properp season of racing. It is jus st the same on the scooter rallyll scene, of course. For the first time in scooter history over the last 50 years a ‘season’ of events for everyone will consist of just a couple of cobbled-together small events. It will almost be like we have lost a year of our lives so the best thing we can do is make the most of them and work together to do everything we can to keep this destructive virus in check so that next year we can have something much closer to our normal rather than this new abnormal!
So let’s make the most of whatever we do get the chance to do in the last part of 2020 – but take care, stay safe and look forward positively. In the meantime, see you at Cadwell Park in August for the first chance to see 2020 race scooters in action. It’s going to be a relief for many and bring back some smiles, noise and smells.
Words: Paul Green
Photographs: Paul White, Stephen Hamilton, Phil Hallam, Graham Tatton