East London - Clint Seller put in a superb ride on the new Yamaha R1 to win the first of two scheduled SuperGP races in atrocious weather at the East London Grand Prix circuit at the weekend - but after that things went from bad to worse and the rest of the day's races were abandoned.
Conditjons were so bad for the only Super600 race of the day that nearly every rider - including the eventual winner, Adolf Boshoff (Kawasaki ZX-6R) - fell off at least once.
The weather was cold and windy but dry for the morning practice and qualifying sessions but the run off areas were very wet and slippery, and there were a number of nasty tumbles. Brandon Goode got spat off his R1 in a spectacular high-side at Cocacabana that ruled him out for the day.
Superpole was also ruled out by the delays, so the grid was drawn up according to qualifying times - which put Seller on pole (as usual) almost a full second quicker than Lance Isaacs' BMW S1000RR, with Mathew Scholtz (Yamaha R1) completing the front row.
ALL FALL DOWN
By the tine Race 1 started the rain had arrived with a vengeance. Isaacs pulled the hole shot, only to slide off before the end of the first lap. In what was to become standard procedure at this meeting he got back on, but his challenge for the win was effectively over, unless disaster struck Seller.
But the defending champion brought the new R1 safely home, 15 seconds ahead of Scholtz, with Kyran De Lange (Silverton Midas BMW S1000RR) a third - only to be disqualified for a technical infringement, which promoted BMW privateer Nicholas Kershaw to third and Issacs to fourth.
The Super600 race really was a case of All Fall Down, starting with Blaze Baker (Yamaha R6) who went down on the first lap while challenging for the lead.
Adolf Boshoff (Kawasaki ZX-6R) seemed to revel in the conditions, pulling out a 15 second lead before he slid off the circuit. That put pole-sitter Steven Odendaal (Yamaha R6) into the lead - until he also came off. He managed to get going again, but a broken left handlebar slowed him down, and soon Boshoff was back in front.
He didn't realise, however, that Odendaal was battling with a broken 'bar, and put in a series of amazingly quick laps on a streaming wet circuit, topped by a 1m30.995 effort, two laps from the flag. Odendaal nursed his barely controllable Yamaha home in second, followed by Kawasaki ZX-6R riders Daryn Upton - in his first Super600 outing of the season - Dylan Barnard and Michael White.