Cape Town - Despite dire predictions, the weather gods delivered perfect conditions for the fourth round of the Mike Hopkins regional motorcycle series at Killarney on Saturday. And with 50 starters in nine classes the racing was as tangled as a soap opera, with interwoven tales of human drama throughout both fields.
Defending title-holder Ronald ‘the Red Baron’ Slamet put the series sponsor’s machine on pole for the Superbike races. Arch-rival Malcolm Rapson, however, had been forced to give this meeting a miss due to work commitments, so the next three grid positions were taken by the young guns of the series - Gerrit Visser, Trevor Westman and Brandon Haupt, each on a similar Kawasaki ZX-10R to Slamet’s.
600 Challenge leader Hayden Jonas had damaged the gearbox of his Asap World ZX-6R in his recent, dramatic SuperGP debut and was out on the team’s spare bike, the ex-Ruan de Lange CBR600RR, which hadn’t been raced in six months. Nevertheless, he was the top 600cc qualifier, fifth overall.
After the usual traffic-jam start, Slamet led every lap of Race 1, making about a second a lap on Westman and Visser, who put up the dice of the day for second, swapping places on almost every lap. Westman decided matters with a kamikaze late-braking move into Turn 5 on the final lap, holding Visser off on the sprint to the line to take the place by 0.023 - about the width of a tyre.
Haupt, one of this season’s most improved riders, stayed with his rivals in the early stages but later lost ground in Turns 3 and 4 to come home five seconds in arrears.
Jonas found the Honda - which he’d never raced before - unexpectedly to his liking; he was the only 600 Challenge rider to break 1m14s on the day. Arch-rival Andre Calvert on the KC Transport ZX-6R, meanwhile, got into it with Class B hotshot John Oliver (Glass It R6) - a fight which he won by less than half a second after a scorching final lap.
Jannie Stander, out on a borrowed ZX-10R for the first time in months after a major crash, disputed Class C honours all the way with Wesley Lewin’s Yamaha R1. Lewin was a second ahead when it mattered; Stander was happy to find his feet and come back in one piece.
Race 2 started with more drama. As the field, still tightly bunched, powered out of Turn 2, the rear wheel of Trevor Westman’s Mad Mac’s ZX-10R spun out and the bike spat him off vertically upwards. Everybody - including Westman - thought he was gone but he landed on his own forearms and dropped back into the saddle to pull off an astonishing save.
By the time he’d collected his wits, however, he was down in 15th, with a lot of work to do. By the end of lap two he was 12th and he passed at least one rider on every lap except the last to come home fifth.
Visser, meanwhile, had reset the suspension of his Kawasaki between races and found half a second a lap. He stayed in touch with Slamet throughout the race and was only 1.939sec adrift at the end, while Haupt came home five seconds later to round out the Superbike podium.
Jonas was next, having set his fastest time of the day (1m13.65s) two laps from the end, while Calvert and Oliver reprised their earlier duet, with much the same result.
That put Oliver at the top of Class B for the day, while Stander led home the Class C brigade.
POWERSPORT
The second tier of regional racing belonged once again to 54-year-old ‘Danie van Killarney’ Maritz, riding the same Suzuki GSX-R750 on which he won the 1987 title – before most of his rivals were born!
Both wins were hard-earned, however, after epic battles with Powersport star Warren ‘Starfish’ Guantario on the Calberg ER6. Maritz even set a new personal best on this machine of 1m17.892s in Race 1 but was less than a second clear at the line.
Mike van Rensburg (MVR ER650) narrowly got the best of a three-way battle for third with rookie Kewyn Snyman, out for the first time on the Monster Plumbing ER6, and Mike du Toit, whose Triumph Daytona 675 was so new it was running in full street trim.
Du Toit had parked it in the tyre wall in practice the day before; the local Triumph dealership stayed open late to source parts from scrap machines to get it running for race day and when the new dealer principal asked why, he was told simply, “That’s racing!”
Du Toit repaid him, however, by winning the Clubman class in both races.
Guantario put in a superb ride on the somewhat temperamental Calberg machine in Race 2, making up on the brakes and in the slower sections what he lost to the old Suzuki’s speed on the straights, and was again less than a second adrift at the flag.
JP Freiderich was third on the Calberg SV650, well ahead of Snyman, who led home a four-bike train after a race-long battle with Du Toit, Andrew Liebenberg (Calberg ER6) and Mike van Rensburg, all of whom crossed the line within four seconds.