Where else can you get 12.5 hours of solid track time and get to share it with a few friends on similar scooters, without it costing the earth?
British Scooter Endurance Racing is the place to be if you like riding classic scooters to their limits. You’ll come home satisfied that you got exceptional value for money. In fact, it only costs around £85 per person if you’re running a team of four riders, in motor racing terms that’s an absolute bargain!
IDK Racing’s Mungo is always excited, occasionally VERY excited!
Tside6 Plus 2
For the second and final meeting of 2023, BSEC were again running an eight-hour race (although the programme mistakenly said ‘Tside6’ hence the ‘Plus 2’ in our title). This time we were back at Teesside Autodrome. The race was preceded by an extended 3-hour practice session on Friday evening and took place before a one-and-a-half-hour qualifying session on Saturday morning. That’s plenty of track time for riders and spectators.
Sweaty nether regions
September is usually cooler than the summer months, often wet and certainly not tropical. After suffering 8-hours of solid rain at Whilton Mill in the spring we were due a break, although 32º wasn’t necessarily what the 37 teams of leather-clad riders were hoping for. Moist.
Race day
With the early morning qualifying session done and dusted it was time for the teams to line up on the grid for their traditional Le Mans running start. A start that for the first time in BSEC history wouldn’t be waved off by the main man, Keith Terry. He’d auctioned that honour off in aid of the Team Caitlin charity (BSEC were raising funds for them over the weekend). Irish lads, Tuatha De Danann bid £210 and one of their team was able to start the race in front of millions of race fans around the world, thanks to the live Alpha feed.
Wildcards
Valley Scooter Club were on pole, with wildcard rider John the Greek putting their lovely blue Vespa on the top spot with a 1:11.769 qualifying time. The team had also roped in fellow 2023 BSSO Group 4e and 6a winner Justin Price (pictured above making a rapid start). Team DSC 78 were second on the grid with a 1:14.088 and the Conneely brother’s new team 3Cs Racing were in third with 1:14.375 (although mechanical issues blighted their race).
Race time
When the flag drops the bullshit stops! The race got underway at 10 a.m. with 27 teams heading into that first corner on cold tyres. Thankfully all got away without incident and the leaderboard was soon made up of Pro Race class teams, Chiselspeed’s CST Racing, Valley Scooter Club 207 and Team DSC 78 and for a while 3Cs Racing and Real Taffspeed
Red flag
Things were going well until about one and a half hours into the race when a red flag stopped proceedings for around 55 minutes. A suspected gearbox seizure meant #55 Team Numpties rider, Ian Cuff was thrown from his Vespa PX and sustained a fractured skull. An air ambulance landed on the track but Ian was taken by road to hospital and is still recovering from his injuries. We wish him all the best for a speedy recovery. The whole incident was handled very quickly and professionally by all involved.
Racing continued once the medics were back in place and thankfully was pretty much incident-free, or at least injury-free for the rest of the day.
Rider fatigue
Scotties Team DSC 78 climbed to first position with 3Cs, CST and RFS Tune a few laps behind. Mechanical problems plagued a few of the teams and rider fatigue played a part for the less physically fit (part-time scooter racers are generally not overly athletic).
Although leading for much of the race, DSC suffered a snapped rear shock and brake failure so they certainly weren’t having an easy day at the office. Things were going to get worse for them before the exciting last few minutes as well.
The clock is ticking
As we got into the latter stages of the race RFS Tune moved up into second place on their lovely red Series 1 Lambretta. Although they were six laps behind leaders DSC 78, with Spire Tarmac Terriers in third, 11 laps behind the leaders.
With Hornet Racing absent at this event (due to BSSO commitments), John the Greek set the fastest lap of the race (1:10.528) for Valley Scooter Club. That was in the last 35 minutes, just before crashing out and snapping the handlebars. Game over for them after riding a great race. Incidentally, their Vespa was pissing fuel out of the top of the tank before the crash, to the point that it actually melted the sole off Justin Price’s boot. A couple of aftermarket Vespa fuel tanks had issues over the weekend.
Victory for Team DSC 78, as Scottie tries to escape a champagne shower
For all the race action you can watch the Alpha Live video above
Nail biting finish
With less than ten minutes to go, DSC 78 were holding on to a comfortable 8-lap lead… but trackside, the team could hear something wasn’t right with the scooter and brought Steve Wright into the pits to check it out. The scooter was stuck in gear and after a frantic look at it they realised the gearbox was kaput. Their lead was slowly diminishing, with RFS Tune getting the gap down to just three laps. To win, the DSC scooter still needed to cross the finish line, so with just 01:40 to go they bumped it into life and sent the rider back out to crawl to the chequered flag in first gear! A nail-biting finale and a very well-deserved victory for Scottie’s team.
Thanks to the sponsors
Without the help and generosity of sponsors, it would be much more expensive to run scooter endurance racing. The following companies and clubs all played a part in making BSEC 2023 possible.
- AF Rayspeed
- AME Auto
- Lambretta Club Great Britain
- ScooterLab.UK
- ScooterNova Magazine
- Thanet Area Scooter Services
- Vespa Club of Britain
IDK Racing
Also, special thanks to IDK Racing for running the JustGiving page which helps to boost the livestream fund by collecting donations from race fans.
Commentary
Thanks to the commentary team, Steve Deeks and Ellis (you can listen to Ellis’ “Original Alternative” Mod and scooter rally sounds radio show here. Also thanks to guest presenter, Wendy McNally. The trio kept the live feed going and made it entertaining for the full 8 hours.
Big up the Terry family
Finally, massive thanks to Keith Terry, Mikey Bonett and family for all they do to ensure we can go out and have some fun.
Below you can read a quick look at my race day and see the full results and celebrations…
London Lambretta Club
SLUK Racing were without a team, or scooter for this meeting and it looked like I’d be watching from the trackside. Thankfully, Jerry called a few days before and offered me a guest ride for London Lambretta Club. It took about two seconds for me to say yes.
Our qualifying session didn’t quite go to plan, our transponder wasn’t working and it took most of the session to get the scooter in and swap it over. We only managed a few laps to set a time and started in twelfth place.
Promising start
Jerry started the race and put in a good solid ride for the first hour. I took over from him for the second stint and we were up into sixth place when the red flag came out. Just before the stoppage we had a gear selection problem and the rules state you can’t work on the bike under a red flag so we had to wait until the restart, then do two laps before we could come in to fix it. That cost us a few laps.
That sucks!
Just before the end of my first session, the scooter began to bog down as I got on the power. Matt took over from me after my hour but the issue got worse and he had to come in to fix it. That turned out to be a broken reed, so we lost about 40 minutes in the pits fixing it (thanks to Scotty from DSC for lending us a reedblock). It was pretty much downhill for us then and despite our best team efforts we finished 17th, 35 laps behind the eventual winners. That’s endurance racing though.
On a positive note, the TS1 250 built by Jerry was a weapon. The Lambretta had loads of power and was great to ride. Thanks for letting me be part of the team for a weekend.
Words and photos: Iggy
Additional shots: Col
Teesside 2023 results
Club class: Sponsored by LCGB
1st 19 Pickering Gold Stars
2nd 32 Tuatha de Dannan Vespa
3rd 84 Team Escargot
Road Class: Sponsored by ScooterNova Magazine
1st 112 RFS Tune
2nd 21 AAORT
3rd 347 IDK Racing
Race class: Sponsored by AF Rayspeed
1st 114 Spire Tarmac Terriers
2nd 15 Team Vespa
3rd 155 Dukes of Essex
Pro Race: Sponsored by AME Auto Ltd
1st 78 Team DSC
2nd 30 CSt Racing
3rd 18 3Cs Racing
LCGB cup: First team from Club or Road Class with an LCGB member
112 RFS Tune
VCB Cup: First team from Club or Road Class with VCB member
32 Tautha da Dannan
Best presented Lambretta sponsored by ScooterLab.UK
19 Pickering Gold Stars
Best presented Vespa sponsored by VCB
84 Team Escargot
Man of the meeting: Sponsored by TASS
Toni and Martin McGowan (and Eddie the dog!) After having a bad Friday themselves (working on the bike till midnight) and lots of mechanical issues during the race, they still sorted out a new drive shaft for team DC 10 SERT and brought it up from London to get them back on track.
BSEC committee award: Sponsored by ScooterLab.UK
Team 8 DC10 SERT, for the effort they put into keeping going
BSEC Scooter Award: Sponsored by TASS
777 Team Maico. It’s different from the crowd, and we do not have an award for different!
Caitlin Cup: BSEC paid for this one
Best 4th placed team on the day: 2 Two Sheds
Championship
Club Class sponsored by LCGB
1st 19 Pickering Gold Stars
2nd 200 Rushden Lambretta Club B
3rd 135 Rushden Lambretta Club
Road Class: Sponsored by LCGB
1st 112 RFS Tune
2nd Tauta Da Dannan
347 IDK Racing
Race Class: Sponsored by AME Auto Ltd
1st Team Vespa
2nd 155 Dukes of Essex
3rd 132 Dukes of Essex 2
Pro Race Class: Sponsored by AME Auto Ltd
1st 78 Team DSC
2nd 2 Two Sheds
3rd 74 Real Taffspeed
BSEC overall laps over two meetings
1st 78 Team DSC: 643 laps
2nd 15 Team Vespa: 623 laps
3rd 112 RFS Tune: 618 laps
That concludes the votes of the BSEC jury!!!
