Burt Munro 2024 – Another Burt Munro challenge complete.
There was a fair bit of interest in the NZ scooter community for this year’s event and a few north island riders had indicated that they may be keen to get out on the track at Teretonga.
The usual social media banter and scooter frothing ensued, and things were looking up, for a good turnout. The Auckland contingent pulled out after one of the local riders up there had a loss in the family and then one of the wellington riders also pulled out. It was a shame they couldn’t make it but the commitment for an event like this is huge, for most working people.
Three of us registered for the event in the Classic pre 63 with girder fork class. Ian and myself had raced there last year, so we were looking forward to some other riders getting out there. Mike put his hand up for racing and we also had two friends join in just for the Burt experience. The weather looked ok for the Friday track day but Saturday and Sunday racing looked a bit dodgy with rain and wind forecast.
Mike built his bike for this event out of some parts he had spare. It was a Lambretta frame with a modified water-cooled engine based on a Yamaha Banshee cylinder. A Vespa disc brake front end and various other modifications turned it into a funky cut down, like some of the English scooterists like to do to their scooters, and it performed exceptionally well on the track.
Ian races his highly modified Vespa PK on some of the local Kart tracks in Wellington and is quite quick around this circuit. He ended up on his spare Lambretta last year after a seize on the Friday track day, but this year the PK was flying. He clocked at GPS 127kph down the straight at Teretonga. While that’s not fast in the context of the bigger bikes here, and in our class, anyone riding a smallframe scooter anywhere can appreciate how fast that actually is.
To be fair Mikes Lambretta had a similar speed down the straight and Ian would just get him in the twisty parts of the track. Both of them actually passed an Enfield 350 in one of our races which was just huge in the context of our class and the event. We are only in this class as its generally the slower older bikes running in it, however you can be racing a lot bigger and faster bikes and depending on the numbers, sometimes the classes are combined which isn’t fair for us as the number of laps are then dictated by the faster bikes not normally in your class. As this is the only event/track like this in New Zealand, that allows us to race scooters then we just do our best and finishing is winning.
For me this year was great with good friends staying and getting back out on the track and doing something that not many scooterists get to do. I did have some mechanical issues with 2 engines and ended up racing my old bike from last year but that’s racing. I thought my weekend was done after seizing on lap 2 of the Friday track day and totally got the hump with my scootering at that point. But luckily for me, my friends came through and gave me the push I needed to get the old bike back out and running. As it turned out I was quicker round the track this year so that’s a win.
The numbers were down a bit on last year but that could be for various reasons. Hopefully this event will carry on and still allow us to turn up and ride.
Get in touch if you want to race.
Burt Munro 2024