Easter weekend is finally here, which means we can kick off the traditional BSRA National Rally calendar once again.
Most of the details for the Scarborough rally are on the flyer above, and of course, you can pay at the door to get into The Spa if you haven’t bought tickets in advance.
Here’s some additional information that might be handy…
- Friday night doors open 8 pm
- The Specials LTD live on stage 10/10:30 pm
- Custom show entries arrive at The Spa Saturday at 8:30 am
- Parts fair doors open at 10 am Saturday
- Saturday night doors open at 8 pm
- Angelo Starr and The Team live on stage 10/10:30 pm
- If you are paying on the door it’s CASH only – the bar accepts cards but can’t do cash back
- The nearest cashpoint to The Spa is located near Olympia Arcade along the seafront.
How many times?
When I started to think about the upcoming weekend, it kind of got me reminiscing. How many Easter rallies have I been to since I first started scooter riding, and how many times have I ridden to Scarborough over the decades?
It’s a rhetorical question, though; I’ve not got the kind of photographic memory our Col has, but I can only ever remember missing two Easter rallies since 1988.
Incidentally, that’s Col’s scooter pictured with the Grade II-listed Spa Bridge and sea in the background. Taken last night, it shows that the council are welcoming us back and closing roads off to allow scooter-only parking along the Spa road. I know for a fact that Col will be upset having Scarborough as his first rally of the year. He lives in the town and loves a ride so will probably go and do some miles tomorrow to cheer himself up a bit.
Pictured above are some members of Out of Control S.C, who I’d ridden up with in 1988. Thanks to John and Rat for the grainy old image.
Out of Control
The warm welcome we get these days is a far cry from my first visit to the town by scooter in 1988, I think we only got in one pub all weekend. It was my first full season doing the Nationals.
Influenced by John’s red T5 in the picture, I’d sold my 50 Special and bought a brand new red E reg T5 (E293 BAL) from MSC in December 1987 (my 17th Birthday) and I passed my full test in May.
Scarborough wasn’t the Easter rally, though; we’d had the Isle of Wight, followed by Great Yarmouth, then Scarborough. We had an arduous journey there (thanks to a freshly built Lambretta GP with teething troubles) and arrived in town just before sunrise on the Saturday. Rather than finding the official campsite at Oliver’s Mount, we decided to camp under the steep cliffs below what was the old castle. No sooner had we got the tents up than the seagulls woke up and blasted our eardrums until we were forced to vacate the ridge tents. In the early morning light, we could see we were camped in a precarious place with ‘Falling Rocks’ signs and huge boulders all around us (you can see some of them in the photo above). We stayed there for the weekend, though.
Tomorrow we ride
Every Easter, when we get a chance to ride to the seaside, we should seize the opportunity. None of us are getting any younger and each year we lose friends; we lost one of our club members this week (RIP Curly). We’ll be having a drink for him at the seaside.
Let’s ride over to Scarborough tomorrow and kick the arse out of it with our mates. I’ll see you there.
Iggy
