![]()
This year saw the SIP racing team compete in the ESC racing series (European Scooter Challenge, eurochallenge.de) once again. After a short break, this year Mike Betz, also known as the operator of the GSF (germanscooterforum.de) and a long standing member of the SIP line up of drivers, returned to his driving duties for the SIP Scootershop.
It is only SIP products, and in-house SIP developments in particular, that find use on Mike’s K5 racing scooter. For his brakes, Mike uses the SIP brake callipers with KBA approval, with the brake pads offering racing-capable and above all else win-capable deceleration. When it comes to the chassis, Mike relies on SIP shock absorbers which provide a top performance even under the toughest of conditions, such as bumpy roads and sharp braking prior to entering curves. The engine, which is K5 compliant and equipped with Polini cylinder, exhaust and air intake, was constructed with the SIP toolkit, such as the crankshaft inserter. A must for every mechanic who is in need of a steady engine!
![]()
The race at the Harzring circuit has long since been a fixture on the ESC racing calendar, and has been hosted for several years by the Wotox Scooter Club under the management of Jesco (known from a variety of film and TV shows and also from the DBM). On Friday, the drivers are offered a variety of training options which enable them to get their scooters ready for the local conditions and make adjustments to the chassis and carburettor. Lots of the participants took Friday off to be able to prepare for the race on the day before and get their scooters ready for the local conditions on location. Saturday is when the qualifying rounds take place, followed by the actual races and, of course, the party at night, before everyone heads home again on the Sunday.
![]()
On Friday, Mike, who is the reigning K5 champion, took it upon himself to experiment with different tyre pressures and proved able to find the ideal tyre pressure for the tarmac/tyre combination at the location. Like most of the drivers, Mike uses tyres manufactured by PMT, which with their superb grip, also perform exceptionally well at the limits. Mike’s toughest competitors, Stoffi (Stoffis / SIP Racing Team) and Achim also took the opportunity of using the Friday to prepare for the race on Saturday in the best way they possibly could.
![]()
Saturday welcomed the drivers with the best weather, and like Friday, the track warmed up relatively quickly so that only in the first qualifying round the drivers competed with medium tyres on their rear wheels before changing over to hard rubber composite tyres in their second qualifying round. Once again, the PMT S was suitable as a front tyre. During the qualifying, however, Mike frequently proved unable to catch a free lap, which was reflected in him only securing the second best training time. This meant that in the first race, Mike was 2nd on the starting grid. Achim Wolf proved able to secure pole position, while Stoffi was just behind Mike at 3rd place.
After a relatively short break for lunch, it was time for the first race of the K5. On starting, Stoffi demonstrated his considerable experience and overtook Mike at the start of the race, and in the following laps, the trio of Stoffi/Achim/Mike fought out a tough battle for the lead. Once again, the K5 race proved to deliver a great show to the crowd, with the lead changing hands constantly and every driver doing their best to get everything out of their scooter. Ultimately it was Mike who prevailed and came in before Stoffi and Achim to claim victory in the first race for the SIP GSF Racing Team! Fourth place was taken by Michael 'Muh' Sätzler, with Andreas Bayer coming in fifth.
The second race started like the first race, with Stoffi and Achim overtaking Mike, who had begun in pole position, on the first curve. Starts aren’t one of Mike’s strongest points. On the third curve after the start, however, Achim made an error and came off the track, and Mike suddenly found himself right behind Stoffi. This was then followed by the two drivers fighting out a tough but fair battle for the lead, with Mike managing to retake the lead a few laps before the end of the race and even pull ahead a little. The race wasn’t over though, as the hot afternoon temperatures caused his rear tyre wearing down fast, and to rule out a possible crash, he was forced to slow down. This eventuality was naturally taken full advantage of by Stoffi, the old master, who in an impressive manoeuvre, overtook Mike on the second to last lap and proceeded to the finishing line in first place, with Mike following him in second place and Andreas Bayer coming in third. Fourth place was taken by 'Muh', with Achim coming in fifth after his early error. After the race, the three best placed drivers at the end of the day, Stoffi, Mike and Andreas were requested to go to the Parc fermé, where – which is standard practice in the K5 – the key data of their engines were checked to ensure their compliance with the regulations. At this point, Stoffi’s engine was found wanting: there was an irregularity with the minimum crushing gap, so his results were invalidated for both races. This irregularity was obviously due to a cylinder change before the race, the manufacturing tolerances of which were not considered to be favourable.
This meant that the results of the daily standings for the K5 were as follows (the second race has a slightly higher weighting for the daily standings than the first):
1st: Mike Betz
2nd: Andreas Bayer
3rd: Achim Wolf
![]()
Following the actual ESC races there was a long distance endurance race, in which after his initial tyre problems, together with his team colleague Christian Kachel, Mike proved able to prove himself against the competition by taking a clear lead.
This was then followed by the Beer and Banana Race, which might not be the most exciting race but is certainly the most amusing one, and is now a legendary event at the Harzring, to which large amounts of beer and bananas fall victim each year. Daredevil driving moves coupled with the destruction of beer and banana stocks. Crazy. You had to have been there :-)
To finish with, a huge thank you on the part of the SIP racing team to the organisers for a superb race, to all the competitors who provided the hard but fair battles on the track, and a get well soon to the drivers who suffered injuries on a racing weekend which was not, unfortunately, free of accidents.
Feel like joining in? Find out more here:
http://www.eurochallenge.de
https://www.germanscooterforum.de/topic/145945-esc-news/
We look forward to hearing from you!
More photos (thanks to Bengt Lange!) are available here on flickr.