The Whilton Six
Six of the best! Paul Green reports on the drama and fun of endurance racing.
Whilton Mill in Northamptonshire was the venue for the six-hour race with fantastic facilities, and although Covid rules meant no spectators there was possibly the best-ever coverage of scooter racing available on the web for the whole of the six hours. Born from a fledgling idea of Keith Terry’s and growing to this brilliant event shows that Keith has most definitely ‘got this’ job, there’s no ‘must try harder’ here! This event at Whilton was first scheduled a year ago but fell victim to the first phase of Covid lockdowns… this year we got the go ahead, albeit with no spectators.
Endurance racing is not really anything like the BSSO scooter racing we know and love. This is no ‘balls out for four or five laps’ affair, but more like a marathon with careful preparation, strategy and a good amount of luck thrown into the equation. With classes open to everyday road riders with no experience of the track, right up to teams featuring BSSO racers, there is plenty of opportunity to have fun. Track action featured everything from a couple of Lambretta Lui machines, through to Moto Rumi and Maico, smallframe and P-range Vespas, through to the obvious Lambretta models. More than 30 teams made up the grid, with some taking their third outing very seriously through to teams still cobbling the bikes together in the paddock having parts brought by other competitors. But there
was an obvious and very common thread
which everyone shared throughout the event and that was the sense of fun and big beaming smiles from start to finish.
The Whilton Mill circuit is a fantastic facility and curves itself back and forth, shrinking 1250m of track into a small area with the help of 13 bends. Overall average speeds are relatively low, with the fastest section being over the start line followed by a quick left and right leading up another short straight to where the track starts twisting and turning through hairpins and sharp bends before arriving back at the start straight just a bit over a minute later. Even the very fastest lap by John ‘The Greek’ Chitoglou at 58.1 secs still averaged only 37mph. This makes the track a relatively safe venue for the many newcomers to track racing to experience their first taste.
With the opportunity for practice on Friday, many teams arrived early to maximise track time. Unfortunately a couple of riders injured themselves and/or their team’s bikes, leaving their colleagues with harder jobs for the main event on Saturday. One of the benefits of Keith having spent so many years racing is that he knows just what makes racers’ minds work and was very clear (i.e. he did a lot of shouting) and several riders who didn’t heed his warnings for over-aggressive riding or not entering and leaving the track correctly were rewarded with penalties. There were a number of riders who learnt the hard way that you really have to keep an eye open for yellow warning flags; especially, do not pass when they are being waved!
The nimble Vespas were made for this kind of circuit and the reigning champions Hornet Racing showed a clean pair of heels; despite getting penalties themselves their star rider John the Greek put in some super-quick sessions to set fastest lap of the event, making Hornet the only team to break under the one-minute mark. But other teams of Lambrettas included some very talented BSSO riders who were lapping super smoothly in a couple of seconds over a minute. There are various strategies employed to maximise results and in this type of racing, teams are still learning what really helps to maximise the laps completed. Staying on the machine is of course the prime strategy, but when the inevitable spills take place then it is about how quickly the team can get the bike patched up and back on track to lose as little time as possible.
But such is the element of fun at this type of event, despite some teams finding themselves with broken bikes (and riders) they were not rushing but just calmly getting things sorted before making their way back on track. Of course you must have rider changes and refuelling strategies for this type of race. The maximum stint a rider could ld d do was 65 minutes, i t which hi h believe me is a real physical te st, and some teams learnt very quickly that a fresh team mem mber really needed to help the t rider off the machinne at the end of his sesssion as several appeaared to lose the us e of their leg gs when trying to o
get off their scooters and pushing them down parc ferme to refuel. The experienced teams are now using trick refuelling rigs to deliver fuel very quickly and precisely into empty tanks, and the days of a few five-litre plastic fuel cans are long gone with the well-prepared teams.
There were only a couple of red flag incidents fortunately with no serious injuries before the planned compulsory red flag at 3pm to fall silent for a minute’s respect to Prince Philip. The sound and smells of buzzing two-strokes stopped and in universal silence the whole paddock showed their respect before engines were restarted and it was back on it!
The teams and support crew could stare at their phones to watch live timing to track their progress up and down the list to see where they were sitting in the event as a whole or within their class. Naturally, some teams were ultra-competitive and pushing hard right down to the last minutes of 360 minutes of racing. Even in the last hour many teams’ lap times were falling, and teams were shuffling strategies and riders to try and make up odd laps here and there. In many ways this unique event has a spirit and atmosphere like no other, with nothing but the greatest sportsmanship being shown and even the tightening of track rules and pit lane rules was always done firmly but with a smile.
So, at the end, the clear overall winners (and retaining their crown) were the Hornet Racing team, but in a funny kind of way… the winners were really everyone involved in any way, shape or form. During all this, the whole event had been streamed live and extremely professionally by Alpha Live’s multi camera and drone set-up which gave the full six hours coverage. This is probably the most extensive and professional coverage yet given to scooter racing – well done everyone involved.
Words and photographs: Paul Green