British Scooter Endurance Club – Teesside | RACING

Practice

Having never even sat on the Holt Tune Lambretta before arriving at the track, I wanted to get a decent test on it the night before the race. After Ben and Kurt took the first stints, it was my turn.

From the start, I noticed the amazing power when on pipe, and it was lovely to ride at high revs. A few laps in, I decided to pin it down the back straight and see what it’s got… fully pinned, I’m guessing a genuine 85mph on the Holt-tuned scooter. Very quick and very nicely set up. The only issue was the front brake would gradually fade over time. Leaving you with next to nothing at the end of the back straight at Teesside Autodrome. With a quick swap from Valley SC, we had a new master cylinder on and were ready for the day ahead.

Qualifying

As a team of three, we decided that in morning qualifying before the race, we would each do 3 or 4 good laps to try to hold a strong time for the starting position. Kurt’s best lap was a solid 1:21, and Ben’s best lap was a 1:23. Mine was just in front at 1:19, scraping us into an 11th-place grid position just in front of IDK!

Close call

Kurt had the first stint, with a very close start-line accident from IDK Endurance nearly wiping him and a few others out! With a gradual pace, constantly improving, Kurt finished and now it was time for Ben to go out.

Ben was improving greatly, and he was definitely feeling a lot better on the scooter until we had to bring him in because the exhaust unfortunately snapped. The amount of stress these motors go through, an exhaust snapping one hour in, is extremely normal. With a spare at hand. We were back out on track within just 4 laps! If that’s not an F1-grade pit stop, I don’t know what is.

Mad Dogs and Englishmen

My first session was difficult, constantly lapping 1:17 seconds around Teesside, with a best of 1:14. I got so tired I had to call in within 35 minutes. My arm pump meant it was insanely difficult to hold on, and I had to stop. A quick trip to the Team Numptie’s base for some Indian tonic water and ibuprofen, and the arm pump was gone! To make matters even better, I even cut my head open on a pole. The joys of racing!

I then proceeded to sit on the hill and have a good conversation with ‘Mad Dog’ Stewart McKenzie about past seasons of the BSSO and his future return to racing for a bit of open-class fun!

Watch the full race

I then spent a full session battling with Graham Tatton until I ran out of fuel on one of the penultimate laps. Keeping up with such a high-grade BSSO racer on a tight circuit was definitely difficult, to say the least. After a quick fuel top-up, I was back on the track.

That was the end of my stints. I had an interview for the live stream that was going on. The man doing it didn’t seem to know much but was certainly giving it his best go. If anyone wants to watch that they can do here.

I just want to say a big thank you to Hol Tune #118 for letting me ride their wonderful scooter and being a part of the team this year. Great effort finishing in 7th overall but 4th in class.

Words, George Fielder, Images: Lee Hollick

Keeping it in the family

George had a good chat about racing, past and present, with the eventual race winner, Scott Swarbrick. Scott is lucky enough to share his racing passion with his two sons, Jake and Finley.

Swarbrick Racing #96 and Team DeXter celebrate their 1-2 win. Scott Swarbrick is second left.

How does the Dexter scooter handle? Honestly, like no other I’ve raced – it drops into turns like it wants to be on the side of the tyre, but you don’t get any nervousness or instability at high speed. We’re still to explore the limit of grip as track time is too limited to play around with suspension & tyre pressures. We set the bike up as an average setting for the 3 riders, and it works for all of us.

Is it hard to maintain the power round such tight tracks? The exhaust power valve on the Supernova 160/180 helps a lot, as you can run less aggressive gearing or use a higher gear on exit, and the motor still pulls from low revs and keeps making power past 12,500rpm. To be honest, like most racers, I just want more power no matter how much we’re given. You can do a lap time maybe 0.5-1s faster if you exit the slower turns in 1st not 2nd, but in 8hrs that’s not important; less wear on the rider and engine will get better results than 0.5s a lap. Also, as I’ve mentioned before, the N-1-2-3-4 DeXter gearbox means we can run higher gearing and use 1st, where you’d try and avoid it with 1st in the original position. All that helps make consistent lap times, but reducing the stress needed to make them. I’ll use the low gears in qualifying.

How did your team manage the 8hrs as a whole? It was a big challenge. Four days before the meeting, I wasn’t in a fit state to ride the bike with back spasms. Then we lost one of the Italian riders due to a family bereavement, and I had no choice but to make it. By Friday evening, the back was manageable as long as the other guys pulled my weight off the bike, which they all did. A fast lap wasn’t hard; hour stints…who knows, we’d find out in the race on Saturday!

Team DeXter lead Swabrick Racing

Things go bang!

Then as with all these events, you have to adapt as the race unfolds. We qualified second and agreed I’d go out for the 3rd stint just to give me as long as possible to get ready to ride. I think I took the bike in 13th place as I went out, and had us up to 2nd position after 30 minutes or so.
Then it all went a bit sideways, literally. I crashed on the right onto the long straight, was on the right side of the tyre but not pushing, hadn’t done anything different from previous laps; the rear just let go. I remounted, and it was all ok. Almost the same point, but this time upright, flat in 2nd just before the braking point and bang! It was just on its side, like an instant seize or more like a gearbox lock-up, with no warning.
When I picked the bike up, it wouldn’t move; rear wheel locked solid; clutch/gears etc. made no difference; back brake felt like it was seized on.

In the recovery truck, much sulking and cussing. It turned out the swing arm bolt had sheared; first crash, the rear wheel must have moved to the left just enough to dab the rear brake as it tightened the cable; second time, the wheel was a good 2 inches out of line to the left, rear brake cable rigid, brake on full. Yeah, I told you it hurt.

Bruised ego

So… we didn’t lose that much in the end, as the repair was fairly quick, but we’d undone all the work to catch back up to 2nd. All we could do was reschedule our rider stints for our best average time for the remainder of the race and see what happens. That meant me doing more than we’d anticipated, but aside from a bruise the size of a 3rd buttock coming up because of the crash, I was feeling ok (I have a rule of not looking at burns/cuts/bruises until we’re finished; how can looking at it possibly help?).

Safe second

Luca was dictating shift lengths from the pits and mercilessly left me out longer than we’d discussed, but Jake & Fin were doing a great job. Jake into the 1:10s and Fin lapping faster around Teesside than he has around Whilton!

As is the nature of endurance, problems also beset our podium rivals in equal or worse degree than we’d had, and by my penultimate shift we had a safe 2nd place if we lapped ‘steady’ to the finish. We ended up with about 80 minutes left to run when Fin finished his final stint, which meant we’d still need one more rider change before the end. Jake was nominated for the bulk of that, with me doing a short 20-25 minute stint to finish.

In racing, everything can change in an instant…

Then it all changed again; disaster struck the DeXter Italian squad #18 with a mechanical, meaning a spare bike and a 30-lap penalty. Just like that, we were now managing a pretty safe 1st place. 6 laps ahead with only 20-30 laps left; even dropping 4-5s a lap, we’d still be safe. Our Italian friends were now just focused on getting back to 2nd overall, which they managed.

Will it finish?

As I took the bike from Jake, he said it was developing a misfire, only in the higher rev range at that point.
It did worsen as the laps ticked by, I was mightily relieved when I saw the last lap board, then equally panicked after I’d nursed it round one last lap to the flag, only to see Keith still holding the last lap board! But we made it to the end and won by 5 laps (it was a broken CDI/stator wire that must have been hanging by a couple of copper strands; such are the margins of thrashing these things for a third of a day)

What are your thoughts on Teesside as a whole?

Same as most people, I think. With Keith letting us run using the long straight, the layout is as good as you’ll get for a UK kart circuit – the condition of the surface, however, is, err, ‘sub-optimal’, but as I was taught years ago, these are the things that make up a lap, they’re the same for you as everyone else; you have to find your own way of lapping as fast as you can. Every bump, hole, tarmac change, etc. is just a ‘thing’ to be learnt and factored into going fast.

Lastly, how does that new Atomika disc brake feel?

We don’t yet run the Atomika on our DeXter Vespa Supernova 160; we are due a fork and calliper upgrade over the winter, but I have used it on the Italian DeXter Supernova 180 and the braking power and feel are astonishing. The pad area alone is bound to offer superior braking power, but the quality of the pistons and engineering all give feel & control – note that it needs pairing with the correct piston-diameter master cylinder, as do all callipers. They are a bargain and can be brought to the UK by prior arrangement with me, to avoid the agg/risk of post-Brexit EU couriers. Just DM me on any social media

Donate to help the Alzheimer’s Society

Lee has been raising funds for the Alzheimer’s Society this year; riders send a donation in return for their racing images, and so far, over £7,500 has been raised for this very worthy cause. If you’d like to donate, or buy your favourite racing pics, here’s the link.