For the first time, there were supposed to be 3 scooters entered into the Pre 63 girder fork class at the Teretonga sprint event, however a late withdrawal from Matt meant Ian and I had the track to ourselves. Matt has been racing here for a few years now and was missed by the commentator and some of the crowd. Ian had travelled from Wellington to his first BM with his 1958 Series 1 Lambretta road bike, in the boot, and a vespa based bucket racer on a rear rack. He has been quite successful in the bucket racing scene mainly racing at the Kaitoki Kart track in Upper Hutt.
We managed to get some track time on the Friday while the beach racing event was on. It was hot and with no wind, the conditions were good to get acquainted with the track again. We both got some good track time in before Ian’s bucket racer seized, just before Castrol corner. We didn’t have the spares to fix it so the day was a bust for Ian. I did a few more laps and was happy with the bike but it wasn’t as fast down the straight this year for some reason. Probably the power to weight ratio being the main factor.
The forecast for the Sprint races on the Saturday was really good and Ian decided to race his Lambretta. Ian’s racing experience and better power to weight ratio kept him out in front of me but we finished both races in our class. There were 3 DNF’s this year in both races so we were pretty happy with that on our old shopping carts.
The fastest bike in our class for race 1, was a 1963 Norton 750.
The fastest bike in our class for race 2, was a 1936 Velocette 350.
The slowest bike in our class for both races was my 1961 Vespa 190.
We got a lot of positive comments from spectators, the commentator and other race competitors over both days we were on the track. We really aren’t racing against the other bikes, just amongst ourselves and the track. The president of the SMC said at the riders briefing before the racing that, you cant win any race if you don’t finish.
We had an awesome time this year and hopefully next year we may get some more scooterists keen to race – get in touch from the contact page if you want to have a go.