vega racing

in the 60's and early 70's, the vega was adopted by club riders for circuit racing, and also became popular for off-road competions, thanks to its excellent ground clearance and high exhaust

:: wildcat racing ::

rafferty newman scooter and motorcycle shop opened in fareham in 1966. during the union pay disputes of the 60's, the catchphrase for off-the-cuff, unplanned industrial action was 'wildcat strikes'. associating wildcat with instant action, 'wildcat tuning' became the name of the tuning branch of the rafferty newman shop. at around this time, the sporting scooter club, the hampshire union, was set up and rafferty newman decided to support hampshire union racing as 'team wildcat'.

rafferty newman used ways to increase scooter engine power such as re-boring cylinders to accept larger pistons; and raising the primary compression in the crankcase by stuffing the holes in the crankshafts with corks and araldite.

the rafferty newman firm was famous for their '5-port induction' barrel, which was available as an over-the-counter item, or part of the 'wildcat kit' for customising scooters. the 5-port barrel conversions involved modifying lambretta barrels with two extra transfer ports and was advertised as increasing power by up to 30%.

a barrel was dramatically overbored almost out to the original stud holes. then two additional booster ports were carved opposite the exhaust port. a car cylinder liner was found that could be machined to fit as a replacement liner inside the lambretta barrel once cut with the new port layout (four transfers and a single exhaust port). the extra ports allowed the exhaust gases to be cleared with a charge of fresh fuel and ensured a more combustible mixture.

one 5-port barrel found its way onto the racing circuit in a 125cc vega which was ridden by geoff stephens and marten holdway of team wildcat. however, the sports governing body banned 5-port barrels from the race track. apparently the 5-port wildcat 125cc vega:

"accelerated like a leopard with a rocket up its arse, but they could never gear it high enough for top speed. after 5-ports were banned for racing this machine was sold for road use to a lad from portsmouth. that is one serious fire-breathing moped".

full wildcat story on:
dave tooley's scooter racing pages, www.davesplace.co.uk
and www.racinglambrettas.com

:: dave tooley remembers ::

former wildcat lambretta racer

"i didn't have much experience in those little beasties, i concentrated on the bigger bikes. i did take that 125 5-port wildcat vega around for a while. almost unridable, as far as I'm concerned. mind you, I was only 8.5 stone when racing, compared to geoff's 15 stone. i couldn't keep the damn front wheel on the ground. would try to somersault every time I opened the throttle. my mate marten holdway bought it from geoff, and he raced it as well. (but again, he was a lot larger than me)".

"that photo [you have used] is nev frost at cadwell park, I remember taking that pic. way back. he was going so fast into the hairpin he overcooked it, and decided to go up the sliproad into the mountain rather than drop it...if I remember rightly, there was talk in the Wildcat fraternity about creating a 150cc racing version utilising an overbored 'j' starstream barrel, but I think it would have been way overpowered for it's spindley little frame, wheels and brakes. i most certainly wouldn't have touched it with a barge pole, they felt so light when racing a powerful version i never felt safe on one. you could almost pick one up with one hand. the rear wheel would skip sideways at every provocation, and at places like lydden hill that wasn't the best of ideas".

more of dave tooley's racing vega photos can be seen on his scooter racing site at: www.davesplace.co.uk

:: vega racing now and then ::

by lambretta sprinter 'the shadow'

"vegas due to the light and good handling are great for racing. When circuit racing the front bars are generally cut down and a single seat put on. the engine also comes in for some attention with work on the head, barrel, exhaust and a bigger carb fitted. different sprockets are use to take advantage of the extra power. in more extreme conversions a 125cc conversion was used by the ronald brothers in the late 60’s to great effect with a top speed of 70+ mph and rapid acceleration, this uses parts from a j125 4 speed. dampers can be fitted along with j hub and rim to make the braking better.

in fact the S/S 1/4 record for fulbeck group 1 is held by a vega 75:

k. armstrong
19.8
28/3/1971

which is a lot faster than a standard gp200!!

vegas are also very good at grass track racing with mark shirley once racing 3 of them, they all had special carb manifolds made along with bigger carbs and one even had electronic ignition.

more recently reed valved lc’s have been fitted to vegas. with the recent popularity of vegas the next stage will be bigger cc bike barrels and one day i am sure i will end up sprinting against, if not on, a vega!!"

:: a snippet from anne weir ::

former vega racer and LOC honorary president

"scooter racing - hum! i kinda fell into this as scooter sport was the only way to keep the clubs going as there were no new machines coming into the country. this would have been in the early 70's. for ages i struggled with my one and only vega at the time (wtb 25h), going to work on it, then swopping gears perhaps for a sprint meeting; a change of tyres for a grass track meeting; til i bought a 2nd hand transit caravanette, it was about this time also that i bought a spare vega off andy smith of the bromley innocents, which now meant that I could pull wtb off the road, lower the bars, tweak the engine to use purely for racing. one of the mancunian members did a little tuning to the engine in return for drill bits and power tools as there was a limit to what i could do either in the back yard or kitchen in manchester".

the above is an excerpt from the book currently being written by pete davies: 'join the jetset' and is reproduced with his kind permission.

:: john ronald's racing luna ::

by pete davies, british lambretta archive site owner & LOC chair

john ronald's luna racer was originally imported into the uk in 1968 by watford-based dealer arthur francis. it was one of the few lui 50's to enter the country and it started life as a lui 50C. arthur set about tuning and converting the scooter and used j125 starstream parts. the scooter then saw the start of its sporting life on the grass track circuits and in field events. in 1970 arthur passed the scooter to john and his brother norman, both members of the nottingham & district lambretta club. the first thing they did was to strip the engine for further tuning.

first job on the tuning agenda was to make the transfer exhaust and inlet ports larger, with a new inlet manifold being used to give a clean straight run into the cylinder and a 26mm amal carb was fitted. the spark plug position was looked at with various positions being tried and eventually they settled on using a central position. to achieve this, an oversize hole was cut in the cylinder head so that a stepped core plug could be fitted. the alloy plug was then drilled and tapped so that a short reach plug could be used. when the cylinder head was refitted it was clear that there was no room for the ht lead and the plug cap so a slot had to be cut into the frame with the ht lead being fed through that.

the engine was initially tried using battery ignition though this was subsequently changed back to flywheel ignition. the stator plate having all of the coils removed except for the ignition coil. the engine wasn't a high revver but it had lots of torque. the main sprocket was changed for a larger 15 tooth item and double springs were fitted to stop clutch slip.

with the engine set up sorted the main problem now was one of vibration. the scooter vibrated so much that it was splitting the legshields. the engine was stripped again and a re-balanced crank was used with 'alpha bearings' in birmingham doing the rebalancing. when the engine was reassembled only one piston ring was used along with a reverse cone exhaust. the amal carb was now fitted with a new design of bellmouth to give the air intake a smoother run. the original 50c handlebars were removed and cut down vega handlebars were fitted. the final problem of the suspension was solved by fitting dampers which helped improve the handling.

the scooter was timed electronically on the long back straight at snetterton doing a hefty 80 miles per hour. it held lap records at cadwell park, snetterton, mallory park and on the isle of man. john ronald's luna machine was definitely a piece of scooter racing history.

pete's british lambretta archive site, dedicated to preserving the heritage of lambretta: www.britishlambrettaarchive.co.uk

article below, source: scooter scene - sent in by czechmate (andy)

:: peejay hinsley's (new forest sc) racing vega photos ::

:: dave booth's racing vega photos ::

thank you to dave booth for kindly scanning and sending these great pics in. slides will appear for 10 seconds before advancing to the next one. press 'stop' to pause a slide, and 'next' to advance.

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