The final National event of the year has been a contentious issue since it was moved from Bridlington to Southport a few years ago.
It’s ended up splitting the scene as lots of people still go to Brid for the Yorkshire Alliance event. Since Covid, Southport has lost its usual Floral Halls venue on the seafront (due to redevelopment) which has also left the rally without a big enough roof to house all the elements of the event. Meaning the event is now split over three venues. Firstly the Prince of Wales Hotel where VFM hold the evening entertainment and lots of people stop, so it’s the hub of the rally.
As was always the case in Brid, the LCGB put on the Trade & Custom show. These are also both held in different buildings in different parts of the town, Splashworld for the parts fair this year and the lovely Market Hall for the custom show. A scattering of venues in three different directions, none having the magnificence of the Brid Spa. This geographic hand grenade means there’s not really a focussed area for the end of season finale so the rally doesn’t really have that ‘buzz’ about it.
Even with all these little problems Southport is a good town with plenty of decent pubs and loads of B&B accommodation. As such I’d been looking forward to the ride up there. A gang of nine scooters riding together in warm late October sunshine was an added bonus and for once we had no problems amongst us other than a snapped gear cable.
After a slight misunderstanding (that I can’t even begin to explain here) with our accommodation (the B&B’s fault for once) the missus got dressed (she was just getting in the shower), repacked her bag and we pushed the scooter over the road to the B&B we were meant to be stopping in. Number 17 & 18 on opposite sides of the road, owned by different people and both had us booked in.
Shower done and glad rags on and it was time to hit the town for what turned out to be a very long but enjoyable night. For me, 2022 has still been a pretty strange year but it was good to be back out doing what scooterists do best.
The volume levels seemed to go up a notch in every pub as more and more of us got together. The karaoke bar was a particular favourite with many scooterists on top form. Later we headed up to the Prince of Wales for some late night antics.
Saturday
After about two-hours worth of microwave sleep the ping went and it was time to head off in search of parts and shiny scooters. Not before being told that one of the South West lot’s TMAX had been stolen from outside the digs across the road during the night. Absolute bastards. They’d dragged it off the courtyard damaging some cars as well in the process.
Make sure you lock your scooters up as well as you possibly can and I suggest having a no hassle, wire free MoniMoto tracker on it as well for the best chance of getting it back if it does go missing.
Splashworld was my first port of call, although I wasn’t planning on trying the water slides out – this was home to the parts fair for the day.
The damp weather seemed to have put quite a few day trippers off because there were no scooters parked outside when I got there and the hall itself wasn’t overly busy but there were enough stalls to cover all bases from ‘get you home’ to shiny stuff, jumble and clothing. I wasn’t there for too long because I didn’t need anything so headed off to the custom show.
Again, very little scooter traffic outside but inside was packed with everything from rare vintage oddities like the Ducati Cruiser to the more mainstream top spec customs and a few BSSO race scooters. SIP had also brought over a couple of their specials, which were good to see on home soil. A 1600-mile trip from Bavaria for the SIP boys.
2023 National Rallies
In the afternoon I attended the BSRA meeting where around 39 club and individual BSRA affiliated representatives thrashed out the final details of the 2023 rally calendar. Gone are the days of lots of arguing at these meetings, they’re an all together more civilised affair.
Results and BSRA Championship
After the meeting it was a quick walk back to the custom show to see the presentations for the show and the Lexham Insurance sponsored BSRA Riders Championship. Scott Southon gives us a run down on the championship and the results here.
You can see most of the custom show winners in the gallery above, sorry about the quality of the images though, the huge windows messed things up.
Finally ‘off duty’ I could head off to meet the usual waifs and strays, ne’er do wells and disappointing human beings who make up my friends group. The kind of under achievers who let parents and teachers down but certainly made a good lifestyle choice many years ago. More daftness, laughter and drunkenness ensued as we snaked away around the pubs a little further out of the main area of town.
Saturday night’s do wasn’t over busy so you could get served easily enough and a good time was had by all as far as I could see in both the main and soul rooms. The Prince of Wales is a good venue but has a huge lobby area and a couple of side rooms, so lots of people spend the night out there chatting, which impacts the atmosphere of the main rooms. Everybody seemed to be having a good time though no matter where they stood, or danced.
Home time
All that was left to do was to pack up, meet up with the rest of our club and ride the Lambretta home (2-up on the RT225 for this event). It turned out to be a wet and miserable day but still an enjoyable ride home.
Thanks to VFM and LCGB for putting on the final National Rally of 2022, events organised by road going scooterists for the enjoyment of us all.
Words and photos: Iggy
Additional photos: Shaun Hodgkin
