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lapousmor Jul 25, 2006

Dear all,

As I promised you, I prepared a live report about the ast scooter races I went to.

In that part one, I will first give you an introduction in which I'll explain you how I got hooked by scooter races and a little bit about why Le mans got famous for its car and motorbike races.

Then I will plunge you into the atmosphere of the pits.

You may wonder how I got hooked buy scooter races.
Well, actually, I would never have guessed I would get hooked to such a motorized sport!!!

So here is the story:
Malko, my boyfriend was not lucky to have a lot of vacation hours of work to fill his days, so he decided to go to help his friend François in his cycle shop/workshop, which is located only a few hundred meters far from hour building. Malko is very good at mechanics, thanks to his father who used to work as a mechanician for the army and is now retired.
François has got a hobby, which is to pilot a racing scooter and do long races (4 to 24 hour races).
He recently asked Malko if he wished to enter the racing team as a mechanician, which he accepted. As I was very curious to watch François piloting the racing scooter I asked if I could go with them to the first race he invited Malko to. I took my cameras with me and I enjoyed it so much I decided to go to every race.

So that is how I got hooked to scooter races.

To keep presenting the background, I must tell you a few words about where things occur.
A few of you already know that we live just at the periphery of Le Mans, a French town famous for its car and motorbike races. We have every year the 24 hour races of cars and motorbikes.
There are actually different races during Spring and early Summer: one for motorbikes, one for cars (both last 24 hours). There is in addition a special race for very old cars (all kinds together) and moppeds and every cycle or car with an engine), where at the beginning there are given only 5 litres of petrol and the race occurs in the town center of Le Mans. I cannot remember how long it lasts. The winner is the one which used the smallest quantity of petrol. This is the only free event of the 24 hour serie. The 24 hour car race is occuring on the famous Bugatti circuit in Le Mans plus a part of the town and surroundings. The 24 hour motorbike race is occuring only on the Bugatti circuit. Finally, there is a new event that joined too in the 24 hour serie, which is "Le Mans Classique" and concerns some races with old racing cars.
Le Mans is hosting too another famous race which is the "Grand Prix de France" for motorbikes.
These events drain a lot of tourists and I guess this is why they are now so expensive. The more representative foreign country is UK. Many English people come to France in very old gorgeous cars and I could not imagine these events without them! That's such a pleasure to cross their cars into town.
All that to make you understand how important this Bugatti circuit got in Le Mans.

Scooter plus small motorbike races did not get that popular in comparison.
When in Le Mans, they occur on a smaller circuit just closeby the Bugatti Circuit and they are free for visitors.

These races mix different categories of scooters plus motorbikes 125 cube cm. So that's quite funny to watch as there are big differences of speed between some of them.

This report will concern three races: the first one occured the 14th of May in Le Mans and lasted 6 hours; the second occured the 2nd of July in Ancenis, a French town about 1 hour and a half far from Le Mans, more in the South; this was a 4 hour race (a chance it was not longer, the weather was horribly hot). The second race occured the 15th of July in Le Mans and this was a 6 hour race.

For the first race, in Le Mans, François and Lacen (who are the main pilots of the team) invited their friends Bruno and Flavien to join. They were piloting our team's scooter, number 127.

For the race in Ancenis, they were only two pilots: François and Lacen. They were piloting their scooter, number 127.

For the third race, in Le Mans, François and Lacen were invited by another team to pilot another scooter, number 144. This other team had two pilots unavailable and did not want to have only two pilots as they used to be 4. Their scooter is much more powerful than François's scooter so both François and Lacen were delighted to get such an offer. The two pilots from the hosting team are Thierry and Claude. They do the races for the fun not with only aim to win. Both of them would need to loose weight if they wanted to increase their performances! The lighter the pilot, the faster the scooter!
François and Lacen too race just for fun. François used to get great results when younger and racing on more powerful scooters than his actual one.

Oh, dear, I almost forgot to introduce you the mascott of the team, Valentino. He joined François and Lacen in May. He is now going to every race.

Here are pics I took at the first race, in Le Mans:

From left to right: Flavien, Lacen, Bruno, Malko and François.

Now, let's go more into the subject...
Time now to tel you a little about organisation.
Usually the day before the race, pilots go to the circuit for first assays of their machines. That same day or the morning of the race, they have to attend some technical control where both the machine and equipment of each pilot (outfit, boots and helmet) are checked. Controllers write with some special colours the number of the scooter or motorbike on every important part of the machine that must not be changed during the race.

Here are some pictures of this check up:

First ones at the race in ancenis (check up was in the morning):

On this second pic you see the helmet plus the back protective clothing pilots add under their suit when not directly included in the suit.

Following pic was taken at the last race checking:

So for the races, pilots need to wear: secure boots:

On this pic Malko is re-adjusting a protective element that is screwed to the boot.

Back protective element and helmet you already saw, a suit:

You see here Valentino who find Lacen's suit too big for him!

And gloves.

Enough for this first part.
Next coming later.

Beary hugs,
Sophie.

doodlebears Celebration AmbassadorJul 31, 2006

Very interesting Sophie. I agree with Renae

You make this much more interesting than I ever dreamed it would be!

Thanks for bringing this all to us, I found it really interesting so far...now I am waiting for part two!

Hugs Jane.     

Judi Jul 31, 2006

Handsome team you have there, Sophie. :dance:   Very interesting.  I have not heard of scooter racing before.  When you mentioned a while back that you would do a story on this subject I was not sure what scooter racing was.  Now I know!