how fast do the racing scooters go?

slowpoke · Post by **slowpoke** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 6:30 am

i looked at the link to nyc motor sport and saw all the pretty things. my warranty is up in a few months and i was just wondering why not put the money i'm not getting from selling it to turn it into the 150 c.c. beast from hell.

Lostmycage · Post by **Lostmycage** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 9:05 am

80 mph is about as fast as I'm willing to go on 13" tires. I'm rebuilding my Blur at the moment, and it looking like it's going to get turned into a monster scooter.... I'm still sourcing parts for it.

What did you have in mind? I'm a little lost on your original post.

There's a lot of options out there for it, it's just a matter of finding sources for them.

illnoise · Post by **illnoise** » Sat Nov 08, 2008 1:58 pm

If you're just looking to go fast, ignore this.

if you're really considering racing and/or track time, speed is secondary to a lot of other factors. Watching vintage scooter racing when the MASS and ESRA were active a few years ago (not much going on outside CA these days), it seemed pretty obvious that racing skill, handling/suspension, and acceleration paid off a lot better than speed, especially on the kart tracks with short straights. Of course if you had skill, speed, *and* a reliable bike (Which describes one person: Scott Smallwood), you'd be running circles around everyone else (and he was). Most of the fastest bikes broke down every other race, they'd take podiums, but the season points winners were the people with reliable bikes that finished every race in 3-4-5 place. In a modern-scooter class, reliability might be less of a problem, I think the trick there is finding the right bike for your class and finding the right balance of acceleration and top speed.

But I doubt you're talking about real racing anyway, because AFAIK, there's not much of it going on in the U.S. It's a shame because it's a cheap way to get into racing, but it's not fun when there's a huge variety of bikes and everyone's demanding their own class. In Europe, it's been going on long enough that there are some pretty well-established classes and the competition's tighter.

Speed is overrated in racing anyway, racing is the most exciting when the machines are fairly evenly matched and the rider's skills are on display.

slowpoke · Post by **slowpoke** » Sat Dec 20, 2008 8:02 am

well... what I was originally wondering is why my scoot never gets past about 8500 rpm on the tach. It has a couple of thousnd left till it hits the red- right? I want those revs to show up on the speedo.

illnoise · Post by **illnoise** » Sat Dec 20, 2008 9:32 pm

Judging by the speedo and the fuel gauge and the odometer, that red line on your tach is probably just an arbitrary patch of screen-printing, and has nothing to do with where the engine actually "redlines." : )