The better racing sport? The eSkootr Championship is coming
20.10.2020
Translation: machine translated
There has been a trend since the Stone Age: fast is not fast enough. Now e-scooters are being upgraded to racing machines and declared the sustainable motorsport equipment of tomorrow.
Even Fred Flintstone tiled through Bedrock at full speed with a "Yabadabadoo!" on his lips. Since then, humanity has not become a bit more sensible. What rolls once is then accelerated to the maximum. The Romans harnessed one or two more horses to their chariots. Nowadays, engineers tickle extra horsepower out of already powerful engines. Anyone who shakes their head uncomprehendingly at this today may have customised their own moped in the 70s.
Collision with the zeitgeist
The joy of riding has always been there and was long tolerated as a pastime. That has changed. Stepping on the gas for fun collides with the zeitgeist. Which brings us to a problem with racing. You have to have a lot of petrol in your blood to get anything out of events like Formula 1. And a certain hubris to leave the ecological footprint of a small state like serial winner and private jet pilot Lewis Hamilton and at the same time be the climate protector. Yet he is just the millionaire celebrity caricature of many affluent people who want to save the world somehow. Eating vegan, shopping sustainably, banning plastic - everything that can be done with money and is not a real sacrifice. But continue to jet around the globe and live life in the fast lane.
Let's not kid ourselves: For most people, the fun stops when they take their foot off the accelerator. It can always be a bit more, emotions dominate reason when it comes to driving. The average new car in Switzerland has 179 hp. That's pretty decent for a speed limit of 120 km/h. However, more and more of this horsepower comes from electric motors. Because the corresponding models are no longer fun brakes on wheels, but avant-garde. The Tesla on the doorstep is a statement. Just like doing without a car altogether and taking advantage of micromobility offers. A new racing series is picking up on this attitude to life, which has taken hold in the metropolises in particular. It mixes the feel-good components into a futuristic fun-without-regret concept.
"Racing for a smart clean tomorrow"
The answer of presumably young, urban marketing strategists to the traditional combustion engine circus is: Let's start a young, urban racing series. Electric, of course. Not a Formula 1 spin-off like the Formula E, but something completely different. The focus is not on sinfully expensive racing cars, but on a means of transport that has recently conquered city centres: the E-scooters. Of course, these things have long been available without a road licence.
The "Usain Rolled" sprinter is a snail compared to what is possible with the Dualtron X-II, for example: 8300 watts accelerate it to a breakneck 110 km/h. The creators of the new racing series believe that this much speed on a narrow city circuit should be enough for the spectacle of the eSkootr Championship. They are selling their "revolution" as "Racing for a smart clean tomorrow" and have teamed up with the British motorsport experts from Williams to develop race-ready scooters themselves. The trailer for the series launching in 2021 would also look good on the Playstation.
Only neon light is not enough
Letting a few neon bright scooters whizz through metropolises and social media channels is not enough. Something meaningful and forward-looking is needed. The organisers have come up with the expected phrases. The racing series wants to champion new mobility at all levels, promote technology transfer and ... blah blah blah ... sustainable ... #TimeToESCape.
The Sustainability Goals of the United Nations are of course also supported. And it's great that the race series wants to bring together representatives from politics, industry and society at each venue to promote the urban mobility of the future. This is necessary because e-scooters in particular are anything but ecological in previous sharing models . The service life is too short and the maintenance costs too high.
To make sure someone listens to the media drumbeat for the eSkootr Championship, a few prominent names are involved: Brazilian Lucas di Grassi, ex-Formula 1 and current Formula E driver, is involved as a "Sustainability Ambassador". Ex-Formula 1 driver Alex Wurz is the "Safety Ambassador" and hopes to have a major social impact. It remains to be seen whether the technology transfer invoked by every racing series will actually take place and whether a few speeding scooters will bring more than just fun to society. New solutions are definitely needed, because the coronavirus crisis will also permanently change individual transport.
I am divided about the eSkootr Championship. On the one hand, a one hundred per cent hedonistic event is being sold as the key to saving the world, which seems absurd to me. After all, people will be jetting around the globe for these events as soon as they are possible again. As with morally superior city centre dwellers without their own car, who regularly reward themselves with a Ryanair weekend trip to London, Berlin or Paris for the price of a taxi, there is a big blind spot in the argument. Despite all the nice assurances, scooter racing is something the world doesn't need. But could like.
I find the approach of the racing series fundamentally interesting: instead of a multi-billion-euro battle of equipment à la Formula 1, relatively little is needed to compete with the high-bred scooters. Up-and-coming talent doesn't immediately need a seven-figure annual budget, but above all talent. In any case, it's not difficult to create more competition and spectacle than with hour-long roundabouts on traditional tracks. Just as skicross or skateboarding steal the show from the long-established disciplines at the Olympic Games, a fast, flashy event is also good for motorsport. No races are not a solution either. If anything is sustainable, it is the desire to go fast. Or to watch others do it.
eSkootr Championship
Are you into that?
- Yes, that's how racing has a future.33%
- No, racing scooters are not needed by anyone.67%
The competition has ended.
Michael Restin
Senior Editor
Michael.Restin@digitecgalaxus.chSimple writer and dad of two who likes to be on the move, wading through everyday family life. Juggling several balls, I'll occasionally drop one. It could be a ball, or a remark. Or both.
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