2024 season: Ben Readings #65 - Lydden Hill | BSSO scooter racing

Last year’s SLUK BSSO rookie, Ben Readings is back for his second full scooter racing season and will be writing about his exploits for us.

With racing, the learning never stops and most riders have some demons to exorcise, most of them psychological. In Ben’s case, wet weather and race starts seem to be plaguing him.

Cadwell Park is coming up this weekend (11th-12th May) but here’s how he got on at Lydden Hill.

Arriving to a dry track is always pleasant, especially in a rough old van whose oil light has been flashing the whole way.

A track walk with John-the-Greek gave me an insight into the track that I’ve never before been around. I expected it to be much flatter than it is, but it seems every single part of the track has some kind of elevation change. I think keeping momentum on the smaller proddy bikes is going to be key to getting good times. Very very excited to go around a little faster than walking pace tomorrow.

Stock practice

First time out on this track, and the Halfords-special foot pump did not tell the truth with the tyre pressures. Going round a track with almost double the tyre pressures was interesting. I was just trying to find the flow and almost got it by the end of practice. This track is definitely going to take a little while to click with me.

CST Super Scooters practice

Wow, the difference air pressure make! Now with the correct tyre pressures, the scooter felt soooo much better. With that issue behind me, I could now concentrate on coming to terms with the place, and I think that is going to take a few more laps.

The seemingly unstoppable Nikiti Donoghue

First stock race

With the Union flag replacing the usual lights for the start of the race, the fear of the rain that had graced us in the holding bay had completely disappeared and was replaced with glorious sunshine. My head was in a good place and I was ready. The race was on and I was pushing. Easier said than done on a track I’d only lapped a few times. However, a really good race, and a long laborious battle with Harry Smith, ended with us getting confused by the marshals and Harry getting back ahead of me. Nikita, Steve, Harry then me. Not a bad start to this weekend.

First CST Super Scooters

Trying to start a race in neutral doesn’t work too well, by the time I had got into gear and away everyone was in front of me. Never mind, this race doesn’t matter too much so let’s just have fun, and that is exactly what I did. Most of the race was myself and Gary battling it out, both of us still trying to figure out this track and obviously getting the hang of it quickly. A bit of back and forth, with him holding the lead the most, I somehow managed to sneak in front and took it from him across the line.

Ben is still beating himself up about his race starts

Second Stock

What a race that was! A little trio of us battling really hard. Myself, Damon and Jon Holt. Lots of to and fro, trading places and some pretty close calls. It’s been quite nice to have a little group of Lydden virgins, it’s cool to see us all pushing hard to learn the track and get round quickly. With luck on my side, I managed to creep ahead of Damon Yates, just as Graham came past and finished the race. Meaning that my little group battle was over and I was the Victor. Wooo!

Second CST Super Scooters

On this start, I launched harder than I expected and it made my feet slip off the rear runners, before I could get my feet back in position everyone was in front of me. Once again a terrible start puts me right at the back with everything to work for. Andy Walker was the first in my sights, putting up a fight with his extra horses I stayed on his tail until an opportunity came along. Then the real battle was on, my old nemesis, Gary Smyth. He was fighting hard. The more we battle each other the more we both want to get past each other, and on this one, I could really feel that. Trading places and getting really really close, we battled right until the end when I just managed to get past. Not bad considering my start, and a new lap record of 58 seconds. Not a bad first day at Lydden Hill, we can continue like this in tomorrow’s races.

Third Stock

A new day at Lydden and another not-so-great start left me near the back again. A bit of a struggle to get myself back to my normal positions, and then the main event. Myself, Jon Holt and Gary Smyth duking it out. Some back and forth for a few laps and then I took the lead. Pushing and pushing, completely unaware of how close the other two were behind me. This track is really tiring, and just as I could feel my energy levels dwindling Jon Holt gets past me and I can couldn’t claw it back.

The finish was Nikita, Steve Wright, Damon, Harry, Jon, then Me and Gary, and Shane just behind. I need to pull it back together and start finding these podiums again.

Third CST Super Scooters

So far this season I feel like the presence of rain has affected me much more than it did last year. I just convince myself that there will be no grip and I just cannot push as hard as I can in the dry. This race was really the epitome of that. With quite heavy rain before going out on track it was up for debate whether wet tyres would be the better option, I definitely didn’t have time to change so stayed with the dry. A wet, and somewhat oily track took Steve Wright off on the warm up lap, not ideal and scary to see. The race started and Damon also came off in the same place, it’s now clear there is a fair amount of oil on track so the race is red-flagged and stopped. We all come back around to our start positions and wait.

While waiting I had a chat with my race team boss, Mr Bristow, just trying to get some pointers on how to tackle each corner on the track. I had decided in this race, I was to hold back and test out a different line on each corner, a little bit of practice to really get back into it for the final Stock race. The race start flag was waved, and this time my terrible start was okay as it put me at the back with plenty of space around me. Just trying different lines, but all the while, clear that Shane was chasing me and was right on my tail. The last lap flag was shown and Shane was right on me. Shane managed to get me around a corner that I’m trying differently to my usual and my red-mist descends, I try and get it back from him but in an almost photo finish, he takes the win with just a 10″ wheel lead, just 0.04-second gap between us.

Last stock

Much better race on that one, the previous corner experiments seemed to help a little. Another long battle with Jon, once past I was working hard, getting better with each lap and slowly reeling in the battle of Harry and Gary ahead. They were battling it out with Harry in front the majority of the race, but Gary just managed to slip in front, all while creeping up on Damon. I was hoping that if that battle slowed them down then I might have been able to just seek past them all. However, the finish line appeared before any of that happened.

Last CST Super Scooters

Rain once again scared me. I really need to get over the visor rain and get on with it. Battling with Shane, a few times I’d look over my shoulder and he’d be quite far back, and then a lap or so later he’d be edging just ahead of me. Just another ‘wet’ race with me thinking ‘I can’t get around the corners’ as fast as I probably can. The only saving grace was Jon Holt seemed to have an issue just before the finish so I could just slip past.

Conclusion

‘I don’t like Lydden.’ That was what I had written while being quite moody about my performance while still at the track. After a decent night’s sleep and a little bit of perspective, I’ve got a little more than just those four words to conclude.

Lydden Hill is a much more complex track than I first expected. It’s one of the shortest that we race on, and it has no real long straight sections. This means that there is no chance to have a little breather and prepare for the next corner. It also meant that I couldn’t really use my lower weight advantage to take people on the straights. At the beginning of last year when every track I went to was new to me, it was clear that it took almost the whole weekend to come to terms with the track. I think I had forgotten that when coming to Lydden and expected to be fast immediately, unfortunately, that’s not how it worked. Fortunately, we will be coming back to Lydden later in the year, so I am excited to see how to go with this weekend’s experience now behind me.

For the time being though, I am very very excited to get to Cadwell this weekend and have fun with a track that I now know quite well.