Round 5 of the Mike Hopkins Regional Motorcycle series, run at Cape Town’s Killarney circuit on 6 July in dry but bitterly cold conditions, produced even more than the usual quota of drama, starting when Nicholas van der Walt’s DMR CBR600 comprehensively destroyed its engine in practice on Friday.
Nothing daunted, the engine shop upstairs at Danie Maritz Racing assembled a new engine for him by 7pm that evening and Van der Walt repaid them by qualifying the bike third overall behind the ZX-10R’s of championship contenders Ronald Slamet and Aran van Niekerk, way ahead of anything else in the 600 class.
Two corners into Race 1, however, everything changed as Slamet ran off the circuit, rejoining in midfield, and Gerrit Visser on the Competition Bikes CBR1000RR powered past Van der Walt into second. Then Sharl Wasserfall, super-aggressive on the brakes aboard the Berlux ZX-6R, pounced on Van der Walt going into Turn 5 and it was Game On.
Slamet, ninth at the end of lap one, scythed through the field to third on lap two and out-powered Visser for second on lap four. He could actually see his championship rival in the distance and rode the wheels off the Mike Hopkins ZX-10R to close the gap, putting in the fastest lap of the day (1min12.388) on lap seven, but Van Niekerk still held the advantage by a heartbreaking 1.52 seconds when it mattered most.
Visser was a lonely third, while Wasserfall put in a kamikaze last-lap pass to get the better of a race-long duel with Van der Walt for 600 Challenge honours by just one tenth of a second.
Leroy Malan (Honda CBR1000RR) took Class B ahead of Jacques Brits (BMW S1000RR) and Shaun de Jager (Honda CBR1000RR), while Wayne Arendse (Honda CBR600RR) was the first Class C rider home.
RACE 2
Van Niekerk, the youngest rider in the field by a number of years, blotted his copybook by jumping the start of the second race, taking both Van Niekerk and Slamet with him.
All three were immediately slapped with a 30-second penalty - but they didn’t know that, as Slamet, Van Niekerk and Visser pulled away from the field in a three-way battle for the lead that had the crowd on its feet, while Van der Walt, Wasserfall and veteran Jan Lucas de Vos (Kawasaki ZX-10R) got into an equally intense battle for fourth.
In another three-way dispute, Andre Calvert (Kawasaki ZX-6R) challenged Malan and De Jager for Class B honours, and even Class C was a cliff-hanger as Elric Everson (Suzuki GSX-R750) put in a late charge to challenge Arendse for class honours.
There was heartbreak at the front, however as the fuel pump of the Stunt SA ZX-10R failed coming out of Turn 5 on the penultimate lap, leaving Van Niekerk (who was leading by about two lengths at the time) at the side of the track, while Slamet pulled away from a tiring Visser to come home three seconds clear, with Van der Walt a distant third, just ahead of De Vos and Wasserfall.
When the dust cleared, however, penalties had pushed Slamet down to sixth and Van der Walt to 13th. Van Niekerk’s penalty, of course, had no effect, which made him feel a little more philosophical.
Malan held off De Jager and Calvert to take Class B, while Everson’s margin of victory in Class C was so small that Arendse took class honours for the day.
CLASSICS/POWERSPORT
When the 400cc Powersport class was opened to 650cc twins late in the 2012 season the Suzuki SV650 immediately became the bike to beat, as teenager Hayden Jonas and Warren ‘Starfish’ Gauntario laid down the gauntlet to all and sundry. Then Calberg Engineering’s Carl Liebenberg built two indecently quick Kawasaki ER-6’s for himself and son Andrew, and the balance of power shifted as the Suzukis, pushed way beyond their limits, became prone to engine failure.
Liebenberg senior took himself out for the season with a broken femur in practice for the June meeting, so he offered the class-leading Calberg ER-6 to Guantario, who immediately invited former National rider Graeme Green to take over his SV650. Even then the game of musical saddles wasn’t over as the Guantario SV650’s brand-new engine ran a bearing and Jonas’ SV650 blew an oil seal in practice.
Jonas would never admit it, but he was in considerable pain from a knee injury after a crash in practice and wasn’t sorry not be riding; Green, however, was all dressed up with nothing to ride - so Liebenberg hauled out the BMW aboard which he’d won the F800 one-make series some years before to set up an intriguing confrontation between two Calberg machines in the hands of very evenly-matched riders.
And that’s how it panned out as Green and Guantario walked away with Race 1, never more than a couple of seconds apart, to come home nearly half a minute clear of Wessel Kruger, who put in a lonely ride on an old Honda CBR600F3 to take Clubman Class honours.
JP Friedrich was the first 400cc Powersport rider home, in a photo finish with Alan Kessell’s similar Honda RVF400.
Mandy Peake’s temperamental Honda Firestorm pulled a big wheelie off the line, which almost gave her husband Grant a heart attack but didn’t slow her down for very long, as she passed the VFR400s of Franco Flach and Arnold Eckersley on lap seven to come home fifth in class.
RACE 2
By now Green had got the measure of the Calberg F800 and he broke 1min20 at least twice in the second race to lead Guantario home by five seconds, with Kruger a further 17 seconds in arrears at the top of the Clubman Class.
Friedrich gave Kessell a master class in 400cc Powersport racing to lead the class by nearly nine seconds, and Vintage Superbike rider John ‘Konstabel’ Kosterman (Suzuki GSX-R750 Pre-Sling) embarrassed a number of young hotshots by finishing eighth overall on a bike that was older than most of the riders it beat.
Mandy Peake got a less spectacular start and rode a steady race to dispose of Tony ‘the Biscuit’ Sparg (Suzuki SV650) and Eckersley on lap three, then passed Flach on the brakes into Turn 1 a lap later to cement fifth in class for the day.