Rabbit 24-hour Scooter Race – Pomposa, Italy | FEATURE

For every hill to climb there is also an Everest: an ultimate that makes all other climbs look tame.

In scooter racing, that Everest was Zuera: the Spanish-run 24-hour endurance marathon. In terms of a crucible where you can test your mettle, Zuera was always the one.

Now Italy has its own Matterhorn: a high, dangerous peak that only the strongest should tackle. With the Rabbit 24-hour, organisers Italian Scooter Challenge made a great leap from the Pomposa 500km (effectively a 6-hour race) to four times as much in a single bite. That’s really ambitious but would it be too much to chew and swallow?

Who Took Part?

Following the ancient racing maxim “What wins on Sunday sells on Monday”, lots of scooter tuning part manufacturers recognise the value of involvement with endurance racing. There is a lot be gained by a successful campaign, but with the end result dependent on so many factors, taking part is also something of a lottery. Pinasco had great success at Zuera in the past – they even named one of their cylinder kits after the circuit – but racing against well-funded ‘factory’ teams has hardened the privateers. Some of these now have lots of experience and are not to be underestimated.

In terms of a complete ‘factory’ effort, only Parmakit were represented on a grand scale, dwarfing the effort of RMS Factory Racing. Other privateer teams were supported by component manufacturers: Egig supported Hubratec, Crimaz supported Vespitaly, Morgan Racing was supported by VMC and so on.

Of the 17 teams entered, the vast majority were Italian. While many were endurance racing specialists, few had competed in a 24-hour before. How would they cope, I wondered?

From outside Italy, German team Projekt Paul – with two smallframes – were possibly the most experienced, followed by Kulesza Racing all the way from Poland who used the only Vespa Largeframe.

Lonely Lambretta

I had a vested interest in another German team – TD Customs – given that my son Sam was guest riding for them on the only Lambretta entered. Normally they race a Targa Twin 265 reed-valve, but the rules of this series do not allow twins, so they opted instead for another Tino Sacchi product; the Super Misano. It’s like an external stud version of the Super Monza kit developed by Charley Edmonds, specifically for a strong punch at mid-rpm but keeping the revs low for long engine life and decent fuel economy. In theory, it was a good choice for this task. 

If you want to know more about which Lambretta kits are good for which disciplines then I recommend that you get a copy of The Complete Spanner’s Lambretta Kit Book.

THAT FRIDAY FEELING

Pomposa circuit is just five minutes from a sandy seafront. It’s also in an area with lots of natural lakes so the majesty of the seaside is compromised by a plague of mosquitoes which are even worse this year following the floods in the region.

The race director, Stefano Bono, dreamt that the paddock would have a ‘family feeling’. That’s quite a hard stunt to pull off when the paddock is filled with ultra-competitive people, but he succeeded to a certain extent. Certainly there were plenty of barbecues and some joviality. Perhaps a few underestimated the monster coming over the hill.

Business for Friday evening was a night practice to check everyone’s lights were working and the floodlights were sufficient. Naturally this session threw up lots of problems for teams who put engine and handling first and illumination second.

One top tip for anyone looking to enter is to use LED strips with unusual colours and positions so it is easy for the pit crew to spot your scooter in the dark. Another tip is to test your LED headlights for function if they are running off an AC system. TD Custom’s LED headlight repeatedly cut-out, not through any fault of builder Marcus’ wiring, but because LEDs need a more stable supply. This was only achieved later by adding a battery.

SATURDAY COMES

The schedule for the race was a noon start and a noon on Sunday finish. Anyone thinking that they can cope with 24-hours awake, and still think clearly, needs to add on that many riders were up at 6 am to be ready for qualifying. In reality, anyone trying to do it all in one go is looking at 32+ hours until the trophy presentation. The human body is not programmed to do that. We can all cope with little sleep, but none at all, is a different question…

STRATEGY

The first part of any strategy is reading and digesting the rule book. I get the impression that not everyone did.

In order for the inner pit-lane and pit-wall not to be swamped, each team was restricted to 8 people. You could have six riders and two mechanics/pit staff, or you could have four riders and four crew. Everyone else had to stay in the outer paddock and watch from the grandstand.

I was interested to see if the Italian teams would go hell-for-leather from the get-go, or if they might back-off a little in order to give the scooters an easier time. Silly question really. There was no consideration given to backing-off more than a few percent. Overtaking was firm but mostly fair.

Paolo Birtele, fastest lap holder at 1:04, knee-down and larking about for the camera

Predictably, scooters started breaking in the first few hours. Vespitaly – who started on pole – had the big-end let go on their crankshaft, taking out the top-end and prompting an engine swap. Elma Factory Racing had their top-end off too. Team Dexter – who Brit Scott Swarbrick was guesting for – began a whole day of replacing pistons, kits and engines.

PENALTIES

The penalty for swapping-out an engine is 50 laps deduction; or roughly an hour’s worth of riding. As such, if you can repair the original engine in less than an hour, then it’s worth trying. Given that it’s impossible for the race direction to watch every team for 24-hours, there is an honesty policy. You are supposed to notify the organisers if you swap a motor. At least one team ‘forgot’ to notify a second engine change when they re-installed their repaired original motor. Clerical errors can happen in the heat of battle, I guess.

Now with lots of penalty laps to makeup, quite a few of the fast teams were left with a second mountain to climb.

In every endurance race I’ve taken part in, you can happily sacrifice a couple of seconds per lap if you have riders who don’t crash and don’t break the scooter. It’s not quite a case of a tortoise being able to beat a hare. More a case of the fastest hare not necessarily being the one that wins.

If you have all those components in place, then you should be set for a good result, unless something unexpected happens, right?

POORLY MADE TYRES?

The lottery element came from the use of tyres from Italian brand PMT. Their slicks are roughly a second a lap faster than the Mitas (formerly Sava) race tyres favoured in the UK. Pretty much every team was using them mounted on tubeless rims.

At Zuera, only a few weeks earlier, several teams experienced sudden deflations due to tyre delamination and air leaking out of the carcass. The majority of those were not on well-worn tyres, and air simply leaked out from little splits where the edge of the tread meets the sidewall. Older PMT tyres did not do this, only the recent batch, so something is clearly not right.

After Zuera, some of the teams contacted PMT who basically shrugged their shoulders and suggested running higher tyre pressures. That’s not very confidence inspiring when you are about to enter another 24-hour event and you don’t know if your scooter will get a flat tyre on the far side of the track, or even experience a sudden puncture that smashes up your scooter and rider.

True to form, the same failures started to occur at Pomposa. Luca from FSR went down hard on his hip due to a sudden loss of air, leaving him with a massive bruise. Similarly Julia – one of the two female riders on the Project Paul PK – fell due to a PMT tyre delaminating so badly that she could get her fingers under the tread. In total, more than 10 failures of PMT tyres not only caused crashes but also affected the race positions.

To put this in perspective, at the start of the season Projekt Paul spent €3000 on sufficient PMT tyres for their entire season, only to be left with tyres that they can’t have faith will survive the next few hours, let alone a whole race. 

I’d be hopping, as indeed, some of the damaged racers were. Race parts rarely come with any warranty, but is that fair when a safety-critical product fails at its only job?

COULD WE COMPETE?

There’s a difference between taking part and competing. I wouldn’t say it’s a safe environment for slow or inexperienced racers. Even between the various classes here, the closing speeds from the fastest to the slowest were at least 20mph. It’s not safe to be pottering about on a nearly standard scooter. 

The level of riding for most riders and teams is much higher than in BSEC, but there are enough good riders in Britain to form a team or two.

The chief difference is in funding and preparedness. Projekt Paul spent more on tyres for one season than SLUK Racing spent on everything for our bike in three years. To do endurance racing at a top level is not a cheap sport.

The top teams don’t just have a spare engine. They have a spare engine that’s identical to their main one. On top of that, they have spare parts for both of those engines in terms of kits, cranks, clutches, gearboxes, wheels, exhausts, lights, bodywork, levers etc. etc.  All these parts are on hand, in labelled packets, in labelled boxes, so anyone from the team can find and fit what is needed at short notice.

Team Scootopia proved a few years ago that a British Lambretta team could come close to winning a class at the Magny Cours 10-hour, but ultimately they were frustrated at the final hurdle. Similarly, the Casa Performance Team broke a rear hub at Magny Cours at the last corner of the last lap on their SST265. I just hoped that the highly-experienced TD Customs Team would have better luck.

BACK AT THE COALFACE

TD Customs weren’t having better luck. Albert – the quickest of the bunch – crashed on his first session but the scooter was quickly out again.

Sam, 20 minutes into his first session, did a better job; bending the exhaust, damaging the headlight and smashing the brake fluid reservoir. Not an auspicious start. Certainly not a good way to make friends and influence people but maybe not his fault either. Zooming in on the photos from his session shows that the fibre exhaust wrap used had come undone and was dragging in the fan and under the back wheel. That’s not what you want mid-corner. 

As darkness fell the Poles were having a nightmare with their PX. It would run for a bit, then pop and fart and misbehave. They had more in-and-out than Ulrika Johnson in her heyday.

The problem, it eventually transpired after 5 hours of stress, was their box exhaust. An internal baffle plate had come loose and at times would block the outlet, killing the performance. Thankfully there were numerous people on hand with TIG and MIG welders to help. Albert from TD Customs team welded the box back together for them after the offending plate had been ejected. 

By now it was midnight. We were only halfway through. Sam sensibly went to sleep for an hour or so before his next stint. The system that TD Customs ran was that from the moment one rider went out on track, the following rider had to be ready in their leathers in case they were needed in an emergency. In reality, that means there’s only a couple of hours between your stints, even with five riders.

As predicted, the difficult period was between 3 am and sun-up at around 5 am. After watching Team Dexter give up putting pistons in their highly-innovative power-valved smallframe engine, and finally fit a spare motor, I sidled off to check my eyelids for leaks. 

Passions running high

Even for teams not suffering mechanical problems, the mechanics have plenty to do. A 24-hour race is long enough that brake pads and tyres need replacing. Hubratec simply plonked their smallframe sideways across the table so the brakes and tyres could be changed. The rear wheel of a smallframe is a pain because the exhaust is in the way, but they cut time by simply fitting a complete wheel and hub as a unit.

THE LONGEST DAY

For the riders, this is easy; relatively. The people really doing the endurance are those on the pit-wall and the mechanics. There is no rest when you must swap riders and refuel every hour at least. Even harder is the job of the organisers. Maintaining concentration, resolving crashes and making snap judgements after 30 hours or so is liable to break even the strongest resolve.

It’s 6 am and Project Paul 2 is up on blocks. The polyurethane engine mounts have called it a day and the engine is wobbling around in the frame. There’s still a full 6-hour race left to go so there’s time to swap them out. This is where national stereotypes ring true. The Germans are well organised and do a good job of this sort of thing.

On the track you’d expect the pace to be slowing, but quite the opposite is happening. As the sun comes up, and visibility improves, some teams are really on it. SPS Corse set their fastest lap, battling on track and overtaking the Vespitaly team who aren’t taking it lying down. My reactions swing from the devil on one shoulder saying ‘go for it guys’ to the angel on the other asking ‘Is that really wise?’

In the end, the angel was correct. At 7 am the safety car makes its first appearance and both bikes appear again on the back of the recovery trailer. The orange smallframe of SPS Corse is missing its handlebars: they are hanging behind the frame by the cables. It seems both riders escaped without serious injury. Play silly games, win stupid prizes.

The safety car pulls in and the mayhem resumes. Teams continue to make running repairs and put the scooters back out. 

Drama continues until the end. Vespitaly Team are still running, but riding slowly down every straight. It seems the pressed-on 3^rd and 4^th gears of their spare motor’s old close-ratio gearbox are now spinning on the shaft. They have to lap for two hours using only 1^st and 2^nd gear.

I play a cruel trick on Timo from TD Customs. He’s packing away their work table. I say “Don’t put that away, he’s coming in!” Automatically, he starts to prepare the table and get the tools out again before my laughter makes him realise that I’m joking and he does his best not to punch me into next week. This is no time for jokes like that.

DISAPPOINTMENT

At 11:40 there are still 16 of the 17 scooters running on track. At least three have changed their engine twice, but they are still going. 

I go onto the track to photograph the finish but I can’t spot the Lambretta. Eventually, I locate it in the gravel at the far end of the track. David is trying to move it but it looks stuck. I start to run over but the recovery truck gets there before I do. Whatever is wrong looks terminal. The engine has run faultlessly for 23 hours and 40 minutes, seeing them in 9^th place overall and 3^rd in class, but now it doesn’t look like it will see the flag.

‘Gutted’ does not cover the disappointment at this stage in proceedings. It feels like the end of the world for TD Customs.

In the tent next door it is the opposite emotion. Projekt Paul 1, supported by Scooter Center, achieve their ambition of both a class and overall win in a 24-hour race with their Quattrini M200-S. They see off Campari Racer Milano by 32 laps; who win the Supersport category. Next on the road is the aerodynamic proto of Vezzola Racing; who are a further 20 laps behind.

Morgan Racing VMC almost make my prediction that a ‘DDS’ scooter (effectively a ‘production’ class limited by kit choice, carb size and exhaust type) will make the top three. They finish fourth on track.

CONTENTION

The scoring of endurance racing is pretty clear. Those with the greatest number of laps are the victors. TD Customs Lambretta, which is spitting gear teeth like it’s been punched by Mike Tyson, has actually done 3 more laps than Parmakit (penalised 100 laps because they changed engines twice) and the Lambretta thus qualifies for third place in the Proto class, even though it wasn’t running at the end.

PARC FERME

However, one of the marshals mistakenly prevents TD Custom from moving their broken scooter into the winner’s Parc Ferme’. Another rule states that if the winners are not present in Parc Ferme at the end of the race for 30 minutes (time for rivals to make a protest and for technical checks to take place) then they are excluded from the results. Parmakit are thus awarded third place on a technicality.

This is beyond cruel.

I’m torn between photographing the celebrations and commiserating with Sam’s team-mates. For some people it sours the end of the race, but for everyone else, it doesn’t even register.

Engine strip for capacity check in Parc Ferme

At the end of a 24-hour race, every team that crosses the line feels like a winner. It’s simply enough to beat the odds; to ride a highly-tuned classic scooter way beyond its limits, stressing every component to the maximum. For everyone who finished, the elation was tangible.

From the outside the event was almost perfect. Dry throughout, only one safety car period, and zero appearances from the ambulance. The riding was mostly very professional. Pomposa is a good venue for this sort of event, even with the mosquitoes.

I call that a massive success. I suspect that if there’s another one, then many more teams will want to enter. Long live the Rabbit 24-hour!

Photos and Text: Sticky

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Proto podium

Super Sport podium

DDS podium

Super Proto winners, Hubratec