Bikesales taking on Le Minz!

The last time this author competed in a 24-hour race was way back in 1996 on a Yamaha TT600 in the famed South Australian reliability trial – the world’s longest running event of that type.

Well, I’ll qualify that – I pulled the pin at the 14-hour mark with my then work colleague at Australian Motorcycle News, Martin Port. Soft, really, but the conditions were onerous to say the least – sub-zero temperatures and intermittent hail storms.

The plan was for redemption 12 months later, but that’s still to happen… And it still may not, because I’ve found another 24-hour diversion – the InsureMyRide Le Minz Scooterthon.

The event has been running for a few years now, and always attracts a full grid – and a quality one at that, with the likes of Troy Bayliss, Jason Crump and Chris Vermeulen all starters, interspersed with a liberal dose of ‘muppets’ like me.

It’s all for a good cause though, with the 2014 event raising funds for the Racesafe medical team which does such a superb job of looking after injured riders at race tracks throughout the country.

When I first floated the idea of competing at Le Minz, it didn’t take long for the word to spread through the editorial team at Carsales (our parent company), to the point where we may have to do some culling to meet the maximum four-rider cut-off. A number of the car and truck journos at Carsales also come from a motorcycling background, including Mike Sinclair, Marton Pettendy, Rod Chapman (all ex-AMCN staffers) and Matt Brogan, so the heightened interest level came as no surprise…

Anyway, we’ll sort out a roster in good time, but the other pressing issue was organising a scooter, and the go-to machine is definitely the Aprilia SR50 R. Thanks to the good folk at the Aussie Aprilia importer, John Sample Automotive, we now have a white SR50 R in our possession – yet to be uncrated, but it’s a start! For more information on the liquid-cooled 5.4hp/4.8Nm pocket rocket, click here.

The 2014 event will be held at the Xtreme Karting complex in Pimpama, between Surfers Paradise and Brisbane, starting at midday on December 5. We’ll be documenting the entire event in words and video, but we’ll check back in before that with the prepped SR50 (not that we'll be doing too much other than a run-in) and how our pre-event physical training is coming along. We’ve missed the boat on Michelle Bridges’ 12-week body transformation, so we’ll have to improvise and find another program.

For more information on the Le Minz Scooterthon, visit the event's Facebook page here.