The European Classic Series (ECS) is a 4 hour endurance race for classic motorcycles valid for the FIM Europe Endurance Vintage Cup. In a joint collaboration between the promoter, DG Sport, and the European ruling federation, FIM Europe, the 2013 series runs in 3 different circuits Imola, Spa-Francorchamps and Aragon. The motorcycles are divided in 4 different categories up to 1985.
President of the Jury and responsible for the original idea is Massimo Mita from the FIM Europe Vintage Commission. He has created the rules and regulations that are designed in order to gather the machines in a logical historical sense and with the purpose to give the opportunity to race to all kinds of classic motorcycles.
The fundamental idea behind the ECS is the collaboration with a promoter that is responsible for high quality classic meetings of collectors and riders, very often one and the same person. In fact, what we want is to give the opportunity to all collectors and hobbyist to ride their most valuable machines in harmless parades and, at the same time, race other machines in a competitive cup. And competitive it is, if we look back to the 2 already finished races in Imola and Spa.
In both, the maximum number of riders allowed by the track were largely met, with 54 teams in Imola and 71 in SPA. In both races we had very interesting fights throughout the field, with some dry and wet situations in Italy. In Belgium the race starts late at 20h00, so that half of it is run during the night, which enhances even more the beauty of the Francorchamps circuit. Till now all riders have approved the ECS and are having a great fun during the meeting days, thanks also to the great work of Christian Jupsin and his team at DG Sport.
The Vintage Commission is very happy to have found a solution for this kind of races and we think that it can even be an example for other disciplines. In the whole world, vintage sport is growing fast and we are seeing more and more high quality gatherings of this type also in Europe. We hope that this will encourage the promoter to expand the ECS to other tracks and other countries, and we will support any activity in this direction.
A highlight of these meetings is also the presence of great champions of the past. Everybody likes to meet them and to see them riding again on fantastic bikes. Till now we had Agostini, Read, Sarron, Spencer, Gardner and Ballington, only to name a few that have attended both races. The possibility to chat with these champions is something that all the fans like and which is very difficult in modern races. But this is the spirit of classic racing and that’s the spirit that the Vintage Commission wants to improve more and more throughout Europe. The last race was in the Spanish circuit of Aragon, one of the most modern circuits in Europe.
Some pictures of this year’s European Classic Series can be viewed here: click here
(FIM Europe Press Release 110/2013)
