Scootering at Silverstone
Absolutely love your readers’ comments and of course your magazine. Recently I was talking to a friend of mine and he asked me if I’d been to Silverstone. I went to high school in Northampton and Silverstone is just around the corner. Then I remembered a summer job I had with a mate of mine. We both had Lambretta TV 175 scooters and we became markers in farm fields for a crop pilot to spray small pellets onto fields. Keith stood at one end of the field and I at the other end. The Piper Comanche then flew over us, dropped the pellets and we moved 10 paces. The pilot repeated this process until the whole field was covered. The pilot was absolutely brilliant. We travelled all over the county alternating bikes but always found the right fields. Except for one morning.
We got a little bit lost but luckily we saw the Comanche circling the field. After the field was sprayed we needed to find the next venture for the afternoon so we headed out in what we thought was the right direction. Went through these big open gates and Keith said this looks like the Silverstone circuit. It was the back straight of the racecourse. My mate said we’ve got to give this a go. Two-up on the scooter we belted down the old aerodrome at 65mph (my speedo was probably a bit optimistic) and then back up again. Lots of fun. We then left pretty quickly. Maybe it was a world record. I can’t imagine anyone else riding a Lambretta scooter on the Silverstone circuit in 1962. Silverstone was still in its infancy in those days. Many years later Barry Sheene travelled down the same back straight at 200mph when he had his horrific crash. Ken Morgans By email