Cape Town – Saturday’s round of the Mike Hopkins Regional Motorcycle series, run as part of the weekend’s Extreme Festival at Killarney, started in the worst possible way as a car competitor (no names, no pack drill) dropped its guts all over the circuit, rendering the motorcycle qualifying session moot at best and possibly lethal.
The timekeepers were forced to seed the riders according to their finishing positions in the previous round - with allowances made because the winner, defending double champion Ronald Slamet, was in Spain on a wild-card ride in the World Superstock 1000 series and international star David ‘McFlash’ McFadden, at a loose end due to funding issues at his British Superbike team, had pulled the well used and much-crashed ex-Aran van Niekerk Stunt SA ZX-10R out of storage and hastily re-commissioned it for this meeting.
It says much for his standing among the local riders that nobody objected when the timekeepers arbitrarily (and prophetically, as it turned out) put McFlash on pole for both races.
Not that he had it all his own way, mind you; he was chased all the way in Race 1 by Trevor Westman, Malcolm Rapson and Gerrit Visser, each also riding a ZX-10R, in a four-way dice that saw at least one position change on every lap.
They included the fastest lap of the race - a blistering 1m11.811s by Rapson - that promoted him to second for two laps, and a kamikaze late-braking move by Westman into Turn 5 that saw him lead for the best part of a lap before having to give way to McFlash on lap six.
McFadden opened a small gap in the closing stages, however, to win by little more than half a second, with Westman, Rapson and Visser finishing in that order, covered by just 0.439sec.
Sixteen seconds later, reigning 600 Challenge title-holder Hayden Jonas (ASAP World ZX-6R) got the best of a race-long debate with arch-rival Andre Calvert (KC Transport ZX-6R) and veteran David Bolding (PJ One ZX-10R) in a stunning return to form after a troubled start to the season.
Jonas explained after the race that his Kawasaki was running like clockwork after a meticulous three-week strip-down and rebuild, and was fitted with Metzeler tyres at both ends for the first time – a set-up he found unexpectedly to his liking.
Born-again racer John Oliver took Class B line honours aboard the seven-year-old Glass It R6 (which also made him the third 600 Challenge rider home) ahead of Alex van der Berg (Wicked Tuning ZX-6R) and Emile van der Merwe (Bigfella ZX-10R), while Nick van Zyl (Kawasaki ZX-10R) beat Wayne Arendse (Honda CBR600RR) to the line for the Class C win by just 0.056s.
RACE 2
Visser suffered a momentary lapse of concentration at the start and launched his Kawasaki when race director Phil Herold flashed the five-second paddle – which put him into the lead as the field streamed into Turn 1.
By the end of the first lap, however, normal service had been resumed with McFlash in the lead (just) from Visser, Westman and Rapson – all three of whom could have been covered by a blanket.
Rapson again put in the fastest lap of the race, a 1m12.113, to move up into third on lap three. He held off a late charge from Westman until two laps from the end, when the Mad Mac’s rider muscled through to finish second, 2.669s behind McFadden, with Rapson third and Visser fourth.
Jonas pulled a perfect start in the confusion caused by Visser’s brain-fade (he was third into Turn 1!) and soon found himself in fifth, with clear air in front of him. He then proceeded to set a new personal best of 1m13.565 - which was also a new lap record for a regional Supersport-class rider – and come home a solid four seconds ahead of Calvert.
Oliver, Van der Merwe and Van der Berg were the first three Class B riders home, while Van Zyl improved on his Race 1 times by an average of half a second a lap to put 6.556 seconds between himself and Arendse on his way to claiming the Class C silverware.
But even then the drama wasn’t over, as Visser was penalised 30 seconds for jumping the start, while Rapson, Bolding and ASAP World rider Karl Schultz were excluded for a procedural error before the start - which moved Jonas up to third overall, while Visser dropped back to seventh behind Oliver.