Cape Town -The first round of the 2015 Mike Hopkins Regional Motorcycle series at Killarney on Saturday attracted no less than 58 entries, who put up three superb exhibitions of elbow-to-elbow racing, with more than their fair share of drama.
Three, rather than four, as the first Powersport race had to be cancelled after a contestant in the previous race rolled his car and left a lot of oil on the circuit.
Then the first Superbike race was red-flagged on lap three after 600 Challenge title-holder Hayden Jonas (Asap World ZX-6R), pushing very hard to stay with the leading group of litre-class machines, had the front wheel tuck just after the apex of Turn 5 and got spat off in a vicious front-end high-side.
One the debris had been cleared away and Jonas taken to the medical centre, the race was re-run, with pole-sitter, double champion Ronald Slamet (Mike Hopkins ZX-10R) dominating proceedings to take the win by 4.32 seconds from Trevor Westman, (out for the first time on the Mad Mac’s ZX-10R), Gerrit Visser and former champion Malcom Rapson.
Jonas’ 600 Challenge rival Andre Calvert (KC Transport ZX-6R) was next, on the only bike in the top eight that wasn’t a Kawasaki ZX-10R, followed by David Bolding, Jan-Lucas de Vos and Leroy Malan.
Five seconds later Mark van den Berg (Wicked Tuning CBR1000RR) beat his son Alex (Wicked Tuning ZX-6R) by 2.117 sec - but Van den Berg senior is in Class A this season, so Alex took Class B honours ahead of David Enticott’s Motorwise Daytona 675, resplendent in fresh white livery.
Gavin Louw (Kawasaki ZX-6R) came out on top of a race-long five-way dice at the top of Class C with similarly-mounted Keagan Smith, Byron de Carvalho (Kawasaki ZX-10R) Jan Nytomt (BMW S1000RR), and Wessel Kruger (Motorcycles and Bits R1) that saw all five finish in that order within 1.6 seconds.
RACE 2
Slamet went straight back into the lead at the start of the second race, with Visser and Rapson in hot pursuit, while Westman got a poor start and had to slice through the traffic to finish lap one in fourth, just ahead of a rapidly improving Haupt, who was running in the twelves for the first time in his life.
Westman disposed of Visser on lap two and Rapson next time around, but there was no catching Slamet, who romped away to win by more than nine seconds.
Jonas, aching all over from his huge tumble in Race 1, and with his bike hastily patched up by crew chief Dad, finished a remarkable sixth, less than a second ahead of Calvert, while Alex van den Berg beat born-again racer John Oliver (Glass-It R6) by two bike-lengths for Class B honours, the two finishing about the same distance behind Van den Berg’s father.
Class C went to Karl Schultz (Kawasaki ZX-6R) by just a quarter of a second from rookie Jan Nytomt (BMW S1000 RR).
POWERSPORT
After the cancellation of their earlier outing, Race 2 was extended to 12 laps, which gave veteran ‘Danie van Killarney’ Maritz ample opportunity to deliver a master class in racecraft on the same Suzuki GSX-R750 that took him to the 1986 Regional title, walking away at a second a lap to win by almost 12 seconds.
When asked what was wrong with the Calberg ER650, Powersport hero Warren ‘Starfish’ Guantario (who is normally able to mix it with Maritz and the old Gixer) pointed out that he was lapping consistently under 1m20s but that Maritz was just getting faster as he got older.
Maritz, however, pulled into his pit after the race complaining that the Suzuki’s clutch was “still slipping” – which means the Powersport riders are going to have to up their game.
John ‘Konstabel’ Kosterman, also on a Suzuki GSX-R750 ‘Pre-Sling’, finished fifth overall behind Powersport riders Guantario, Mike van Rensburg (Pragma ER650) and JP Friedrich (Calberg SV650), while Jacques Botha’s Suzuki GSX-R600 was the first Clubman machine home, in eighth position overall.