Thanks to Phil Waters for the following:

The History of ESRA:

Shortly after the creation of MidAmerica Scooter Sport (MASS) we noticed there was a lot of interest in racing on the East Coast. A great many of these East Coast racers were participating in MASS events. Unfortunately it meant pilgrimages of biblical proportions just to get a couple of races in on Saturday afternoon. We determined that there was enough interest to create a separate league. Tom Pennington, Larry Riley and I all went nuts trying to find tracks that were scooter friendly.

As usual the biggest problem was representing something so far from the norm. Just like in MASS, Championship Cup Series (CCS) ended up being our saving grace. John Stafford and Tom Pennington got together with a CCS representative and arranged to have the inaugural race of the Eastern Scooter Racing Association (ESRA) at Summit Point Raceway in Charles Town, West Virginia. We had an outstanding turnout of 12 racers. Since the race was held in conjunction with the annual scooter rally at Summit Point, we had a solid base of rabid scooter racing fans. We couldn't have asked for a bigger success. I have lived through all of the teething pains of getting scooters on a race track for the very first time.

Fortunately, all of our racers were on the ball, everyone pitched in to make sure all the scooters passed tech inspection. We looked like we knew what we were doing, sometimes that's all it takes. The lessons we learned at MASS events the previous year were invaluable. We were able to establish an instant rapport with the CCS officials letting them know we were serious, and how we wanted to make a good impression. The races went off without a hitch and we turned in track times that impressed everyone.

Afterwards, I could barely get back to my van, there were so many people approaching me asking about ESRA and motorscooters in general. We achieved our goal, we introduced a whole track full of people to ESRA. Thanks to the enthusiasm and approachability of every ESRA racer, we left them knowing we are a legitimate organization that welcomed their involvement.

2002 will be ESRA's first full season, CCS has offered up many different tracks to choose from and our good friends in the Ohio YSR League (OYL) have welcomed us back to run with them. This promises to be a great year of racing.

Phil Waters
ESRA

The ESRA maintains an online HTML version of their rule book in the Files section of their "ESRA Group" on Yahoo!. This group is open to all, just join and enjoy.

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