Cape Town – Round 8 of the Mike Hopkins Motorcycles regional championship at Killarney on Saturday brought the series to a dramatic climax, as the final meeting of the year, the All Bike Race Day, doesn’t count for points.
And the drama started on Friday, as title contender Ronald Slamet blew the engine of his Helderberg Yamaha R1 in practice; then the only other rider with a mathematical shot at the title, Trevor Westman, got spat off the Mad Mac’s ZX-10R on the sighting lap for Race 1 in a huge high-side. Team-mate Jacques Ackermann, with nowhere to go, rode over Westman’s shoulder and also went down. Both riders walked away, but their day’s racing was over.
That handed the regional championship to David McFadden and the RacePrep S1000 RR - so McFlash celebrated by romping away with both races in fine style – although he said later he would rather have won the title by crossing the line ahead of his rivals than in their absence.
Alex van den Berg (Loud & Clear CBR1000 SP), Kewyn Snyman (Kawasaki ZX-6R) and Warren Guantario gave Andre Calvert and the KC Transport 1299 S a hard time for a few laps but the big Ducati soon pulled away to finish a clear second.
600 Challenge hotshot Hayden Jonas on the Samurai R6 finally got past Dale Field (Field ZX-10R) in the closing stages and very nearly caught Snyman for third overall.
After a superb three-way battle, Gavin Louw (Suzuki GSX-R1000) beat Peter Haupt (Yamaha R1) for Class B honours by half a second.
Race 2
Snyman got a brilliant start to lead the field off the line in Race 2, but the two litre-class contenders muscled past on lap one and went away, leaving Snyman to put up the dice of the day with Jonas, Field, Van den Berg and Guantario, all of whom finished within little more than three seconds, with Jonas in front when it counted;
Snyman took class honours for the day but the title, for the third time in four years, went to Jonas, while Haupt finished well ahead of Louw to take Class B honours for the day.
There was a huge upset in the Clubmans class as 14-year-old Sam Lockoff, who has dominated the small-capacity Powersport B series throughout the season, went out for the first time on a Samurai Racing R6 and simply ran away from the rest of the field to win the first race by 12 seconds from Hein Kroese (Team Bakgat CBR1000RR), Willem Binedell (Dog Box GSX-R60) and Derek Hendricks (Bikers Delight R6).
The talented teen posted an even bigger winning margin in Race 2, coming hone nearly 22 seconds ahead of Kroese, Binedell and Johan Maritz (Biker Bits CBR1000RR). Hendricks, meanwhile, got into the dice of the race with Wayne Arendse, which ended with Hendricks in front by a scant 0.643s when it mattered.
Unbeaten
JP Friederich (MSD SV650) maintained his unbeaten record in the Powersport series with two solid wins, the second by an unusually narrow margin after he ran off the circuit in Turn 2 – but didn’t lose the lead! Veteran Paul Medell and Chris Williams, each on a Kawasaki ER650 fought it out for second in Race 1, with Medell coming home 0.660s ahead, very pleased with the result after not having raced for four months.
Maxim Mandix took a hard-won fourth, his ASAP World ER650 held together by duct tape after a huge crash in qualifying, while Lockoff brought the Samurai Racing R3 home eighth overall, more than 390 seconds ahead of Gareth Dawson (KTM RC390) and Tony Sterianos (ASAP World Ninja 300R).
Short-circuit graduate Erin Lane, 16, made a respectable if tentative big-bike debut on the ex-Graeme Green Factory Lane SV650 – which is a year older than she is! – finishing 12th overall.
Medell came home a lonely second on Race 2, 17 seconds ahead of Williams; Lockoff was seventh overall, an emphatic 42 seconds ahead of Sterianos, to take the Powersport B first-place trophy for the day as well as that for Clubmans, while Lane improved one place to 11th overall.