With newly-crowned Regional Superbike champion David 'McFlash' McFadden not entered (he's just signed a two-year World Superstock deal with the factory-backed Ten Kate Honda team), the final round of the 2012 Mike Hopkins Regional Superbike series at Killarney this Saturday will be fought out between three evenly matched BMW S1000RR four-cylinder rocketships, making for intensely close racing at the sharp end of the field.
Starting as favourite, judging by his recent form, will be I-S Freight services hotshot Ronald Slamet, in his last outing on the BMW before switching to a Kawasaki ZX-10R for the 2013 season.
Slamet finished second to McFlash in both races at the previous meeting, with Trevor Westman on the Walker Brothers machine and 2011 Regional title-holder Malcom Rapson (Donford S1000RR) dicing for the final podium position.
There's a lot of pride at stake here - as well as the final championship pecking order - so expect to see kamikaze overtaking moves on every corner and slingshots on the finishing line.
600 CHALLENGE
The battle will be just as rough in the 600 Challenge category, as Brandon Haupt (MX Clean GSX-R600) and Gerrit Visser on the Competition Bikes CBR600RR battling it out for the title, and teenager Nicholas van der Walt on the Race Prep CBR600RR still in with a mathematical chance of taking the honours.
Van der Walt has battled through a difficult season - the bike he's riding was assembled out of the remains of two crashed machines! - and would like nothing better than to hand his two more consistent rivals a spanking in the season finale.
Classes B and C are still wide open; riders to watch in Class B are on-form Mark van der Berg on a Honda CBR1000RR, Terry Smith (Eclipse Fireblade), Mike Wilhelmi's Fast Fence ZX-10R and Shakir 'Shrek' Smith on the Entity CBR1000RR - now probably the oldest bike in the class.'
Class C will probably be fought out between class stalwart Wayne Arendse (Honda CBR600) and Kurt Fortune (Kawasaki ZX-6R), with Vossie Vosloo as the dark horse if his DEA R1 is running properly - it suffered clutch problems last time out.
POWERSPORTS/CLASSICS
Carl Liebenberg on the Calberg F800 has dominated the Classic/Powersport races throughout the season and has deservedly wrapped up the Battle of the Twins title already, but he has come under increasing pressure recently from a new wave of Powersport competitors on Suzuki SV650 V-twins, notably Warren 'Starfish' Guantario and teenager Hayden Jonas, who will be fighting it out with Liebenberg's son Andrew (Calberg RVF400) and JP Freidrich, also on a Honda V4, for the series title.
Both the Vintage Superbike and New Era titles are still up for grabs; the former will be settled between Tony Jones' Cagive 650 Alazzurra and the Suzuki GSX1100 of Tony Sparg, while Frans Maritz, riding his brother Danie's 1985 championship-winning Suzuki GSX-R750, will be the clear favourite for New Era honours.