Another year of pandemic restrictions meant the BSSO season was cut and carved in to a shorter five round series for 2021. Similar to last year, the final round was down at Lydden Hill in Kent, just short of Dover for those not knowing where it is.

Thankfully the weather was different to last year, after the bleak wet, windy and cold conditions of 2020 the weather gods gave us dry and at times bright conditions for the racers to have fun in.

FDue to circuit hire costs, to get access to the better circuits the BSSO have to piggy back on larger organisations, mainly bike clubs. This means there is a chance to watch other bike classes over the weekend. This year’s stand out class to watch, other than the scooters of course, was the FAB Racing youngsters who were riding the wheels off their 50 or 70cc bikes (running 12” wheels and actually using the same tyres as Hammy’s Group 6A Runner), with the fastest riders lapping in 47 seconds, quicker than the fastest scooter lap by John the Greek, it was great to watch these fearless youngsters and I’m sure we’ll see some of these kids move up in the world of racing, definitely some future stars out on track.

Back to the scooters and if you have never been to watch scooter racing then one thing you’ll find is how open and friendly the paddock is. Many of the racers are, or were rally going scooterists and fancied doing something different with their Italian shopping bikes.

There were a few newcomers out there this season, with Glen Swallow out on the old Replay Racing Group 4 “Badger” now prepared by Atoms Scooters, Harry Smith out on his Stamford Scooters PK 135 in Production Class, who got to rip up his novice’s hi-viz at the end of the meeting and Simon Palmer who was flying on his Hants Union Wildcat, Production Class Lambretta. Unfortunately he was literally flying in the final Stock scooter race of the weekend after straying wide on to the grass, thankfully he was ok.

It was great to see the progression they all made, including Phil Hallam, another road going scooterist who started out on track last season and will be giving SLUK a riders view of the season shortly. Seeing the smile on all of their faces it shows how much enjoyment they are getting from taking part and in the words of Arnie “they’ll be back!”. The racing was close all weekend with Ioannis Chitoglou aka ‘John the Greek’ (Hornet Racing Group 6) setting the fastest lap of the weekend at 49.8 seconds on his PK whilst battling in the Super Scooters race against Justin Price (Team DSC Group 6), Steve Bruno Wright (Group 6), Stuart Day (Team SRP Open Class), Steve Hammy Hamilton (Team DSC Group 6A) and the chasing pack. With Justin and John sharing the wins over the weekend’s 4 races.

The Super scooter races included Group 6, Group 6A autos and Open Class. Stuart Day was riding an “off the shelf” Gran Turismo GT300LC engine and it was performing very well until a gearbox issue put paid to his fun in the final race. Over in the Stock scooter races the full bodied classes of Production, Group 4, Group 4Evo and Group 10 auto were all out together. Dave Bristow’s DEA powered, Hornet Racing smallframe 4E Vespa, was a rocket ship and sounded gorgeous – flying him to 3 wins and Stuart Day on his SRP 4E Lambretta taking the fourth race win. Both battling with Justin Price, Zack Tingle, Graham Tatton, Steve Hamilton, Alex VanDyke and the chasing field led by the ever youthful Keith Terry all weekend. Credit to Keith, getting a 5th place on track resplendent in his Sunday best! Zack taking the Group 4 wins, Graham the Production Class wins and Mark Shirley on the flying Chiselspeed 77cc Zip in Group 10.

It’s only a shoulder

Unfortunately there was a nasty crash in the first Stock race of the weekend involving Jeremy Steel and another newcomer to Lambretta racing, DTC Macca’s son, Jim McNally – resulting in a red flag and Jem being airlifted to hospital, thankfully he is on the mend. Heal quickly Jem!

Jim had his dislocated shoulder popped back in and showing the tough stuff the Macca’s are made of he went out again later in the day, but sadly on the Sunday as the swelling had gone down and the pain took hold a “wobbly arm” meant he had to retire. Unfortunately there was another red flag in the next Stock race with four riders involved. Sadly Team DSC’s Daz Westgarth also had to retire for the weekend, that is racing and sometimes you take the rough with the smooth… I type this with bitter experience after separating my shoulder ligaments at the Whilton Mill BSEC endurance race, before going on to be successful with SLUK Racing at Teesside! We don’t bounce quite as well as we used to, but it makes the good times sweeter!

As this was the final round of the season all of the championships were settled and the following riders were crowned as champions:

ACU Super Scooter – Justin Price Team DSC
ACU Stock Scooter – Graham Tatton Team DSC
LCGB Production – Graham Tatton Team DSC
Group 4 – Tom Shaw SRP
Group 4 Evo – Justin Price Team DSC
Group 6 – Justin Price Team DSC
Group 6 Auto – Steve Hamilton Team DSC
Group 10 – Mark Shirley Chiselspeed Tuning

Full results are available here or photos of them are in the gallery.

One thing you will notice if you do visit a BSSO race meeting is the camaraderie and how the teams support each other through the weekend to keep as many scooters on track as possible. It was great to see our friends from ScooterNova on the spanners to help get Jer Crew back out on track with a quick exhaust change. The camaraderie continues through to the banter and humour on the Saturday night with a few shandies as the teams gather. Huge thanks to Scotty and all at Team DSC, particularly the affectionately named “DSC wags” who kept us fed and “watered” all weekend. One note of warning though, do not fall asleep in Team SRP’s gazebo on a Saturday evening, particularly if a permanent marker is about. Check out the pics!

The 2022 season

The BSSO are looking to continue the great progress made in the second half of this year by offering a full calendar in 2022. If you fancy getting out on track then why not give it a go, there’s options now to try before the investment in a race license, etc by getting out on the next BSSO track day (potentially at Blyton Mill again) or get a group of mates to tape up the lights on your road going scooter and join the BSEC for one of the 6 hour endurance races. Having been lucky enough to race back in the 90s and resurrecting my time on the track via the BSEC endurance racing I can thoroughly recommend it. We’ve already seen some of those endurance racers progress into the BSSO racing as they look for a new challenge, maybe you could be the next? If not then try to get along to watch as it’s a great weekend, with a great bunch of fellow scooter nuts. Check out the BSSO and BSEC Facebook pages for more details. See you at a track in 2022!

Words and photos: Shaun Hodgkin

For more of Shaun’s paddock and track side photos have a flick through our gallery
Rookies report

We’ll be bringing you our Rookies Report from Phil Hallam over the next few days, complete with Lee Hollick’s race photography.