Yamaha NMAX 125 – Official 2021 BSB Paddock Scooter!

Race paddocks used to be awash with paddock scooters zipping about everywhere, and even more weird or whacky little zoomers. Heck, a mechanic in the WSB paddock even used an MV Agusta Brutale as his run-around scoot! Things are a little more controlled now, and after-hours track scooting long since banned, but paddock officials still need to get about quickly, which is where Yamaha’s NMAX 125 comes in.

You may even have seen some on the telly box this past weekend, from when BSB made its triumphant return at Oulton Park. Any official lucky enough to not have to use their own feet to get about would have discovered a light, easy to manage 125cc machine, thanks to the new chassis, with a mix of four-stroke low-down grunt and a traction-control system for a bit of extra safety. There’s also plenty of under seat storage for a helmet they won’t have been wearing, or any paperwork they need to cart about. Really, 125cc is overkill for a paddock scooter, but these guys are the bosses so they get the big guns!

Bigger still are the six Yamaha Tenere 700s also added to the BSB fleet, to be used by marshals and the like as taxi bikes, and if memory serves we’ve already seen a rider or three being transported back to base on the rear of one of these fine machines at Oulton, following a whoopsie.

Superb on and off-roaders, the Tenere is just right for zipping about behind barriers and harder to reach places with its Dakar derived chassis, and comfy enough that no top level racer will likely get piles during a lift back to lick their wounds. Also, it’s powered by the 689cc parallel-twin MT-07 engine, an absolute little ripper of a thing and it must be unbelievably tempting for marshals to cock about, and super hard to not cock about, given that CP2 motor is tailor made for cocking about!

Understandably BSB Don, Stuart Higgs, is absolutely delighted with his free, sorry, official scooters – ‘We have a long association with Yamaha’, said Stuart, ‘and I am pleased that we can maintain that into 2021. The Yamaha paddock scooters and taxi bikes are pivotal to the operational side of the event and we look forward to utilising them during the season’.

All well and good though we wonder if, given we’re still in a pandemic and the scoots will be used by lots of different people, just who is going to sanitise them after every ride? At least there will be the helmet compartment to fill with sanitary products, seeing as nobody ever seems to wear one in the paddock, so there’s that, we guess!

In the meantime, if you’re looking for a handy scooter to zip about town, or a middle-weight adventure bike to pretend to go off-road on, you could do far, far worse than having a good gander at either of this pair at your local Yamaha dealer.