Round nine of the Mike Hopkins Regional Motorcycle Series, this Saturday at Killarney, promises grudge-match racing of the highest order, with scores to be settled throughout the 52-bike field.
But the man to watch is undoubtedly on-form Ronald Slamet, who put the I-S Freight S1000RR on pole at the previous meeting, recorded the fastest lap in both races, won the first and would have taken the honours for the day had he not been outplayed by similarly-mounted Trevor Westman in Race 2.
Which is not to say that Slamet will have it all his own way; Westman has been battling with a damaged gearbox on the Walker Brothers S1000RR, while defending champion Malcolm Rapson has had set-up issues on the Donford S1000RR. Both these issues should be resolved by Saturday, setting the scene for an epic three-way confrontation on identical bikes.
And then there's that darkest of dark horses, Aran van Niekerk on the five-year-old Walker Brothers R1. The Yamaha is at least 30kW down on the state-of-the-art BMW's and lacks any form of traction control other than the rider's right wrist, but Van Niekerk has consistently been among the front-runners this season on the old war-horse.
He missed the previous meeting due to a broken gearbox, but the bike has since been repaired and we can expect more over-the-top antics from Van Niekerk this weekend.
600 CHALLENGE
There's another grudge match at the top of the 600 Challenge, with Brandon Haupt on the MX Clean GSX-R600 and Gerrit Visser on the Competition Bikes CBR600RR - good friends off the track but arch-rivals once the lights go out - ready to take up where they left off at the previous meeting, when the overall honours for the day went Haupt's way by less than a second after two superb dices.
The unknown factor in this equation, however, is 15-year-old Nicholas van der Walt, Van Niekerk's younger bother and the other half of the VanBros racing team. Van der Walt was out last time on an untried hybrid Honda CBR600 cobbled together from two crashed bikes, but sponsors Race Prep have had a month to get the bike running properly, and he will be keen to get back on terms with his 600cc rivals.
Veteran Mike Wilhelmi (Fast Fence ZX-10R) pulled off a superb double win in Class B at the October meeting, and will be out there to prove it was no flash in the pan - but he'll have to deal with Mark van den Berg's Honda CBR1000RR, Jacques Britz' BMW S1000RR and the Entity CBR1000RR of Shakir 'Shrek' Smith to do so.
Class C will be a free-for-all between Wayne Arendse (Honda CBR600RR) Robyn de Goede (Honda CBR600) and Kurt Fortune on the Blaze ZX-6R with veteran Vossie Vosloo quite capable of putting his DEA R1 in the mix if he gets a good start.
CLASSICS/POWERSPORTS
Officially, they're in different classes - Carl Liebenberg's Calberg F800 competes in the Battle of the Twins while Warren “Starfish” Guantario and the Total Control SV650 scores points in Powersports - but they're the fastest riders in Classic/Powersport racing and their rivalry goes back to the day when Guantario first entered the V-Twin Suzuki and gave the hitherto unbeatable Liebenberg a big wake-up call.
But that's not the only grudge match in Powersports - there's another between long-standing Honda VFR400 rivals Andrew Liebenberg and JP Friedrich, while the whole of Class D will trying to avoid the embarrassment of being beaten by a girl, as happened last time out, much to the delight of Honda VTR1000 rider Mandy Peake.