Whilton Mill 8 – Scooter Endurance Race 2026 | SPORT

The 2026 British Scooter Endurance Club kicked off with the first of their two annual meetings at Whilton Mill at the end of March.

The weather forecast for the weekend was changeable, and it lived up to it: we had heavy rain, bright sunshine, heavy winds, light rain, hail, and very cold temperatures.

Full grid

Whilton is a great circuit for both riders and spectators, and with 35 teams signed up to take part in Saturday’s 8-hour endurance race, there would be plenty of action/carnage to look forward to.

Wet practice

Friday evening’s two-hour practice session started dry, but it absolutely bucketed down with rain after a few laps. Whilton is notoriously slippery in the wet, and most teams came in to change tyres, sit it out, or mend crashed scooters. That included our team, London Lambretta Club. Tommy was caught out using too much front brake. Luckily no damage (this time at least).

Club house

A cosy evening in the excellent clubhouse kept us occupied and fed on Friday evening. It’s great to catch up with a few people off the track for a change and the food and drink is brilliant at Whilton.

Good crowd

The late March date for this meeting meant the paddock was very cold overnight, especially for those of us ‘braving it’ sleeping in vans. Despite the Baltic conditions, there were still a few hardy souls camping out as well, and lots of scooter-riding spectators arrived on Saturday.

Hanging around

After his bollocking from the team boss, we thought we’d found a despondent Tommy hanging around when we got back to the van after the bar closed. Luckily, it was just his recently crashed race leathers!

At endurance, you can enter a team in the LCGB and ScooterLab sponsored Club Class, like #71, Dukes of Essex3 

Qualifying

A cold, windy and early start greeted us on Saturday, but it was preferable to wet weather. The track had dried out nicely overnight, with just the odd damp patches to worry about during qualifying. It was that cold, though, that we couldn’t get enough heat into our Mitas race tyres. Talking of heated tyres, Jerry had bought some tyre warmers over winter. Sadly, we didn’t have a generator to run them! In a complete bodge, we ran 50 metres of cable up to DTC Reparto Corse and plugged into theirs (thanks, folks). It was great when the genny was actually on, but it was a waste of time in reality.

Get a grip

The half-hour qualifying session went badly; I did the first 15 minutes, followed by Jerry. I wasn’t comfortable, though, because of the cold; we had very little rear grip on our Lambretta. I did about seven very steady laps and could still feel it losing traction. After the session, we lowered tyre pressures to gain some extra grip in the race.

On the grid

You don’t have much time in between qualifying and the actual race, just 30 minutes to make any adjustments, refuel and get your scooter and rider down to the grid.

Tommy was doing our Le Mans start from about 85th! We were actually in eighth, but it felt worse.

Meanwhile, up at the business end, the Italians of Team Dexter were on pole with the number 18 machine. They’d come back to defend their 2025 Whilton race win. They qualified with a time of 59.864 but would drop another three seconds off that time during the race.

Second on the grid were Chiselspeed with a 1:03.820.

Keith checks Nikita hasn’t packed baby Jameson into her race leathers…

BSSO champs

In third was #7 DTC Reparto Corse. This team was made up of the current BSSO champion, James McNally, and his sister, Nikita (2024 BSSO champ). It was great to see Nikita back on track, fresh from having a baby just four months ago. They also had Graham Tatton, Damon Yates, and Dan Mears in the team. Both Nikita and Jimmy crashed and broke two headsets between them. The team finished in 28th position but Jimmy set the fastest Lambretta lap of the day with a 1:01.785.

Fast Vespas

There’s a noticeable move towards more Vespas at endurance now. Swarbrick 96 have swapped over from Lambretta (their complete endurance Lammy is up for sale) to Vespa for this year, and the Italians have built them a very fast smallframe. They now go by the name of Swarb96 by Dexter Racing. They qualified with a 1:06.058 on their brand-new endurance-spec smallie; they got that down to 1:01.499 during the race but suffered a few crashes. If you ain’t crashing, you ain’t trying! They still finished in fourth place, though.

Le Mans start

You can’t beat a Le Mans start.

Although some riders tried. They were so eager to get started that they ran across the track before Keith had even dropped the flag. Safe to say, they were back in line with red faces beneath crash helmets, ready for the ‘real’ race start a few moments later.

They’re off

As a full grid of leather-clad riders ran across the track to their waiting machines, we all waited with bated breath, hoping they all got away safely, and they did. The race was underway.

The Italian riders, Luca Moscon, Ahron Larcher, Simon Secchi and Federico Vaccari showed us Brits how to ride a Vespa as they pulled away from the pack within the first 15 minutes. An awesome display of riding, even with a few crashes throughout the race, they commanded the race for the whole eight hours and set a fastest lap of 56.541. Hornet #6 was the second quickest with a 58.237.

Fortune favours the brave

Our misfortunes continued. Tommy did the race start and first stint, but crashed out after about 40 minutes. After the scooter was pushed back to the pits from the top of the track, the race was red-flagged due to another incident. This was good news for us because it gave us a chance to get things straightened out without losing too many laps.

Tommy was a bit winded after his off, so I went out next.

Nice package

Jerry built a brand new engine for the number 4 machine over the winter; the old TS1 250 was worn out. He’s built a long-stroke Casa SS225, which makes around 30 bhp, so it is very similar in power (and feel) to the old engine. Although down on torque marginally, the engine is lovely to ride on track. In fact, the whole scooter is a great package. Well done Jerry*

*That’s enough creeping for the time being.

Good times

The scooter was feeling loads better than it did in qualifying; it had plenty of grip and was performing well. I was starting to really enjoy this session and was making my way through the pack to get us up the leaderboard. Sometimes you have to know when to rein things in, though.

Ran out of talent

Not far from the end of my hour-long stint, the fastest man on track came past me, and I decided to follow his lines. Sadly, a Vespa smallframe with a mega rider on board and a Lambretta with an average one are very different beasts, and within two corners I’d decked it. I simply ran out of talent, completely my fault.

It was a painless crash, though, nothing hurt, and I quickly picked the scooter up, only to realise I’d snapped the handlebars. One of the most time-consuming fixes you can have. Jerry wasn’t going to be happy!

The clock is ticking

It took about 1:45 to change the headset; internal damage to the controls meant we lost quite a bit of time stripping things down, and we had other issues when rebuilding. Finally, it was ready.

Our youngest member of the team, Sam, went out next but came in after about 15 minutes because he wasn’t feeling well. Jerry took over and rode very well, although we later found out he’d crashed during his session. Things weren’t going so well.

A problem shared

Tommy was out next; he’d recovered sufficiently from his crashes to ride again.

Not too long into his session, he disappeared from the live timing and we couldn’t see him on track, had he broken down on the far side? Things soon became clear when Tommy Tipple reappeared, along with the scooter and its second set of snapped handlebars of the day! Although this was very bad news for the team, it was bittersweet because it meant both Tommy and I would get the bollocking from Jerry, rather than just me.

We retired to the bar at 3 pm to watch the final three hours of the race.

The top four

You’re always guaranteed some great race action at endurance meetings, having Team Dexter there was something special though. They dominated the race from start to finish in a fantastic display of skill, both in their self-built, very fast, full-carbon, scooter and in their racecraft (not counting the various times I saw them fall off of course).

By the end of the race, just 28 laps separated the first four finishers. Team Dexter took a very well-deserved chequered flag after 424 laps. They were followed home by Hornet 6, Team Vespa and Swarb96. The Italians had covered just short of 300 miles during the eight-hour race.

Licking the wounds

With the race over and presentations finished, we went off to lick our wounds (Tommy was battered and bruised, Jerry had a cut and graze on his arm).

Jerry will be rebuilding the scooter again for us to use and abuse in September at Teesside, and it looks like we’ll be opting for custom-made handlebars to save us ruining any more vintage originals.

Although things didn’t go to plan for us, there’s nothing better than thrashing a fast scooter around a race track with a load of loons. It’s great fun and relatively affordable. Get a team together and get out there…

Words and photos: Iggy

Donate to the Alzheimer’s Society 

Additional images: Lee Hollick.

Lee is raising money for the Alzheimer’s Society this year by selling his race images. Any money raised goes to the charity – you can donate here.