No Mercy on the Straight
If you’ve always wanted to try scooter sport but didn’t know where to start, Stu Owen thinks the Straightliners have just the thing you’ve been looking for.
The sport of scooter sprinting has gone through some turbulent times over the last few years. On one hand thanks to the availability of performance products it’s never been easier to build a competitive engine; on the other, first time entrants are often put off at the thought of competing against seasoned competitors.
To help alleviate the problem and allow new riders to have a better chance of competing with those at the top, Straightliners – the organising body that runs the biggest sprint series in the UK
– is introducing a new championship in 2022. Known as The No Mercy Scooter Shootout, it will be held over 11 rounds with the best nine counting towards the No Mercy championship. There’s no crossover from this championship with any other Starightliners event.
The beauty of this championship is that due to a novel system of handicapping, the results will depend more on reaction time and riding skill than power.
The rules
There is only one group, scooters can have any, or no, modifications to the engine and frame.
Each rider will be able to race all day Saturday and on Sunday morning. There are no restrictions on how a machine can be modified. It’s simply a question of riding as fast as possible. These races will give the rider a very good idea as to the performance of their scooter and riding ability. Most importantly for the championship they will also determine an individual’s ‘Index time’. This must be lodged with race control before noon on the Sunday.
Once logged with control, your time will be used for the race pairings which will be allocated randomly. Thanks to the handicap system it’s possible for any two riders to compete – racers won’t know who they’re drawn against until being called to the start line.
As an example, if a rider has an index time of 10.5 seconds for the 1/8th mile and their competitor has one of eight seconds, the faster rider will face a 2.5 second handicap. A blackout board in the middle lane will prevent racers from seeing one another’s ‘tree’ lights. As the two riders are now evenly matched for time, success will be down to reaction times. Under this system of handicapping there’s no reason why the quick-thinking rider of a standard scooter shouldn’t beat a highly tuned machine with a sleepy rider. It’s an idea that should make for very exciting racing.
Championship points will be awarded to each competitor based on how many rounds of the shootout that they raced in. The total number of rounds will vary depending on how many competitors are in the shootout that day. The winner at each round of the shootout final will be awarded an extra four points and there will be an extra four points awarded if a rider runs a perfect dial-in time.
There are no second places; as to be expected, with a competition titled No Mercy it is winner takes all and as an added incentive Straightliners has put up a £300 prize for the winner of the first round.