Cape Town – The first race meeting of a new season is always difficult to predict; many riders will be out on new machinery - which or may not be faster that last season’s bike.
In the case of Round 1 of the Mike Hopkins Regional motorcycle series, the crystal ball is further clouded by a clash with the opening round of the SuperGP nationals at Red Star Raceway this Saturday.
Epic rides at Cape All Bike Race Day
Defending regional champion Ronald ‘The Red Baron’ Slamet has landed a well-earned ‘works’ ride with BMW Motorrad so he and team-mate Sandra Stammova will be in action at Red Star, leaving international star David ‘McFlash’ McFadden to deliver another master class aboard the MSD Suzuki South GSX-R1000 L5.
Behind him, however, there will be the usual rough-and-tumble between the usual suspects - Trevor Westman on the Mad Mac’s ZX-10R, Brandon Haupt’s MX Clean ZX-10R and the privateer ZX-10Rs of Gerrit Visser and veteran Malcolm Rapson. Any one of them is capable of leading the pack home on his day – but we won’t know whose day it is until the flag drops.
The biggest X factor of the season, however, is likely to be the 600 Challenge, as defending champion Hayden Jonas faces possibly the most determined challenge of his career.
EPIC RIVALRY
Powersport star Warren “Starfish” Guantario has stepped up to the big league on a Mad Macs ZX-6R, identical to Jonas’ Fifty8 Racing machine. With more than a decade of successful racing on both short and main circuits in his CV, Guantario is one of the hard men of Regional racing, despite his affable nature off the track.
Each has also stated his intention to compete in as many as possible of the Super600 meetings races at national levels; this has the makings of an epic rivalry, one not to be missed – and it all starts here, this weekend.
We were all looking forward to seeing whether hotshot rookie Kewyn Snyman would mature into a consistent Powersport front-runner without Guantario’s impetus to spur him on - but Snyman, along with Alex van den Berg, will also be at Red Star this weekend, each making his National debut, while Jared Schultz, Brandon Storey, and Gareth Gehlig will be competing in the KTM Cup feeder series.
In their absence the Powersport races at Killarney are likely to be fought out between Mike van Rensburg, Jacques Botha and veteran Paul Medell, each on a Kawasaki ER-6, with Wayne Arendse (Honda CBR600RR0, Wessel Kruger (Honda RC51 SP2), and Michael du Toit (Yamaha R6) the danger men in the Clubman’s Class.
IOL