Tony O'Brien Vespa 90 SS : Vespa Tuning: Vespa Racing

Now…. after not attending Cadwell it was a must for me to get on the bike one last time for me this year. Ok this event is a straight line ‘ride’. Its not the same as road racing for me anyway. But.. I wanted to prove the worth of the bike.. just how advanced it is and simply how powerful the motor is thanks to Charley of course…

So…The Scooter Shootout. Its basically 2 events.. a 1/4 mile sprint and a top speed event over half mile. Its the latter that interests me.

I know the bike can do well over the 100mph. According to the gear calculations it does so at a few tracks so.. with this is mind I set about rebuilding the motor with the tallest gear kit I have to gain this top speed record for a full bodied Vespa.

With just 3 days to do this in amongst work committments was fairly tiring but aiming for 110mph at peak power in top gear was the idea… 🙂

So.. arriving bright and early after 4 1/2 hours drive all is ready…

It soons becomes apparent that sigining on is over subscribed.. it also becomes apparent that the Half Mile speed event is no more… its now a standing start 500meters.. this is only 100meters past the 1/4 mile… I am now thinking “what have I done”… spent 3 days frantically rebuilding the motor for no reason! After some thought and the help of Steve Pollitt who lends me a smaller rear tyre I decide to have a go….

So…. here we have a massively overgeared bike trying to set a top speed time in only 500meters from a standing start…. 🙁

I do my best for run one…..

The 1/4 speed is 94 mph and 98 over the 500meters.. mmm…. so.. The bike is accelerating well but i think with lower gears I could do a better standing 1/4 but I need to break that magic 100 mph and its just not enough here…

So.. take the 90/90 tyre off and go back to the too tall 3.50… I know this is going to hurt the start… in fact the bike will do 53mph in first at peak power. But if the crowd can forgive my kangaroo starts it may… just may be able to crack the 100mph albeit below its peak power at 500 meters.

The launch is messy to say the least.. the misfire under load problem is rearing its head again..but I know once over that the bike will take off and it does in its usual fashion. I try to be very careful as it gets through this flat spot as I know it will try to spit me off when the power comes in as this issue makes the power behave like an on/off switch and its scary.

Finally the bike draws its breath.. does not try to sting me and we are racing up through the gears and down the strip. The 1/4 marker flashes by and I tuck in and keep the thing nailed. The shift light flashes on just before the 500m marker. I had set this to hopefully show 100mph.

Riding slowly back I wonder if I the bike had done it. My mate Col is waiting by the time card collection point and slowly wanders over to me with a little yellow ticket and a quite large grin 🙂

So there we have it… thanks to Pete Newbold for the event.. thanks to Col for supporting me throughout the day. To Paul , Shaggy and Ste Pollit for their help also.. and thanks to Iggy Granger, Col,Lee Hollick for the pictures.

And also thanks to Charley Edmonds for the motor!