Any motor race that goes on for eight hours is an epic. When the drama is played out around a seriously twisty, 1km circuit on 150cc motorcycles it becomes the stuff of legend.
That's why top national and international competitors have come to Killarney in mid-December each year for the past 27 years to compete in what is essentially just a club event - the annual RST Leathers/Honda Wing Tygerberg Endurance Race for Short-Circuit Motorcycles, better known simply as "the Eight-Hour".
Among the riders in the 29 teams that lined up for the 2008 Eight-Hour were former European GSX-R Cup holder and SA Superbike champion Hudson Kennaugh, works Honda Superbike rider Greg Gildenhuys (who was teamed up with former SA Supersport champion Allan-Jon Venter and up-and coming national rider Dylan White), top SA Superbike privateer Rob Portman, 2008 WP Superbike champion Robert Cragg, 2008 WP 600 Challenge winner Trevor Westman and 2008 WP BMW F800 champion Paul Medell.
There was also a works Honda entry (with two very senior Honda SA executives rushing around the paddock like teenagers as pit crew!) and a privately entered Honda CBR150 ridden by three young off-road riders that nobody had ever heard of.
Warren Guantario put the Putoline CBR150 he was to share with Wesley Jones, Michael Hall and Rob Cragg on pole position (no surprise there, he is the 2008 CBR150 Cup champion) but second in qualifying was the green CBR150 of David McFadden, Bernard Haupt and Dale Gray - none of whom had ridden in more than a handful of races on tar.
The "Dream Team" of Kennaugh, Westman and suspension guru Martin Paetzold (team owner Jonny Towers of RST was out with a broken shoulder) qualified fifth behind the Monza Group CBR150 (Dino de Wet/Dario de Wet/Aran van Niekerk) and the Calberg Hydraulics CBR150 of Jimmy Pantony, Andrew Liebenberg, Jacques van der Merwe and Graham Coker.
McFadden got it all together at the (traditional) Le Mans start and was first away, ahead of Guantario and Dino de Wet but within a lap Gauntario was in front as the two leaders broke away. Paetzold was third, ahead of Van der Merwe and de Wet, but soon moved up to second, on the same lap as Guantario.
22 minutes in Guantario lost the back end in the 180s and went down hard. The team lost four laps and rejoined in 17th as Paetzold took over the lead, just ahead of McFadden, Gildenhuys and van der Merwe.
Halfway through the first hour Paetzold handed over to Kennaugh, who put in some blistering times - including a best lap of 49.7sec - but could not shake the kids, who were only a lap down at the one-hour mark (68 and 67 respectively), with veterans Bosson, Liebenberg, Van de Merwe and guest rider Rob Portman third, two laps behind the leaders, on the Calberg machine.
Tony Sterianos, Jacques Peskens amd William Wakefield on the Wackem Racing CBR150 put in some hard laps during the second hour to move up to third while the Gauntario/Jones/Hall/Cragg crew worked their way up to fourth - but the RST team still held a tenuous, two lap advantage over the kids.
Then, a few minutes before the end of the third hour, Paetzold on the lead bike collided with the Mark McFadden/Ian MacDonald/Neville Murray/Enzo Grande CBR150 in the 180's. Both went down and Paetzold took the bike into the pits for an unscheduled stop.
HALFWAY MARK
It was only out of action for three minutes but that was enough - when Kennaugh went out again the McFadden/Haupt/Gray bike was in the lead. It took Kennaugh about 25 laps to catch the green Honda and he moved back into the lead halfway through the fourth hour.
By the halfway mark the RST bike had done 279 laps and looked set for a record tally and a second successive win - but the McFadden/Haupt/Gray machine was still on the same lap! Wackem Racing was third and the Putoline crew had worked its way up to fourth - only for Cragg to be skittled by a back marker in the Golf Club.
He retained fourth place overall but the crash cost them a couple of laps and all three were pushing to the limit to make up the deficit when Cragg lost the front end coming out of the Pits Esses and threw it away in the biggest crash of the day.
The bike bounced off the tar and back on, scattering sand and grass right across the track on what is in effect a blind corner. Despite frantically waved red-and-yellow flags a number of bikes got very sideways on the debris so the safety bike was deployed before anybody got hurt.
The field closed up and cruised round for half a dozen laps while the marshals got busy with brooms. When racing resumed the two leaders went at it like it was a sprint race and by the time the Putoline machine - by now no more than a tank and a seat on a bare frame! - was running again it was down in eighth, 27 laps in arrears and out of contention.
ANYTHING COULD HAPPPEN
With an hour to go the RST team was still only two laps ahead of the kids and although it was unlikely they'd be able to unlap themselves twice Kennaugh, Paetzold and Westman couldn't afford the slightest mistake.
And then, with a little more than half an hour to go, Macfadden moved up and passed Paetzold - suddenly there was only one lap in it and anything could happen.
Westman rode the final session on the RST bike and he went at it as if it was the first, turning in perfect lap after perfect lap to reel in the MacFadden/Haupt/Gray machine and re-pass it 22min before the end to seal the win.
When circuit suddenly fell silent after eight hours of mind-numbing noise Kennaugh, Paetzold and Westman had completed a record 551 laps at an average of 52.26sec including pit stops, with Kennaugh's best effort a stunning 48.878sec on lap 246!
Only two laps behind were the youngsters, who didn't even stick around for the photo session in the post-race paddock. They just got on with what they do best - being teenagers - and it will take a while before what they've accomplished sinks in.
Wackem racing's Sterianos, Peskens and Wakefield were third on 538 laps with Bosson/Liebenberg/Van der Merwe and Portman fourth on 532.
RESULTS: 27th Annual RST Leathers/Honda Wing Tygerberg Eight Hours
1
Hudson Kernnaugh/Martin Paetzold/Trevor Westman (Honda CBR150) 551 laps
2
David McFadden/Bernard Haupt/Dale Gray (Honda CBR150) 549
3
Tony Sterianos/Jacques Peskens/William Wakefield (Honda CBR150) 538
4
Chris Bosson/Carl Liebenberg/Jacques van der Merwe/Rob Portman (Honda CBR150) 532
5
Junior Joubert/Gareth Wait/John Craig/Grant Raeside (Honda CBR150) 525
6
Roberto Agostinelli/Luca Agostinelli/Jean Paul Friedrich/Paul Medell (Honda CBR150) 521
7
Wesley Jones/Michael Hall/Warren Guantario/Robert Cragg (Honda CBR150) 520
8
Jimmy Pantony/Andrew Liebenberg/Johan van der Merwe/Graham Coker (Honda CBR150) 518
9
Brandon Storey/Ramon Ziade/Michael Hamill/Gary Wilson (Honda CBR150) 517
10
Kallie van den Berg/Graeme Brown/Rob Gortmaker/Nico Olivier (Honda CBR150) 511
11
Tim Coetzee/Anton Blignaut/Adrian van der Merwe/Leroy Malan (Honda CBR150) 510
12
Michael Wahl/Graeme Greene/Shane Williams (Honda CBR150) 499
13
Paul Linaker/Adrian Gibbon/MarkNewitt/Guy Moat (Honda CBR150) 492
14
Barry Barnard/Janine Mitchell/Vaughn Swanepoel/John Pienaar (Honda CBR150) 490
15
Cindy Brown/David Bolding/Chris Sickle/Simon Portlockl (Honda CBR150) 489
16
Alan Westman/Alan Scheckle/Justin Priday/Nick van der Meulen (Honda CBR150) 481
17
Mark McFadden/Ian MacDonald/Newville Murray/Enzo Grande (Honda CBR150) 475
18
Paul Combrink/Allen Grove/Norman Grove/Ryan Schreiber (Honda CBR150) 473
19
Gavin Crouse/Theo Loubser/Craig Ongers (Yamaha TZR50) 470
20
Gert Visser Senior/Gert Visser Junior/Warwick Sacke (Honda CBR150) 441
21
Nicholas van der Walt/Mark van der Walt/Adam Wright (Honda CBR150) 441
22
Willy van Niekerk/Grant Barrett/Duante de Sousa/Trevor Pentz (Honda CBR150) 426
23
Raymond Alexander/Johan Louw/Jandre Koekemoer/Gareth Steele (Honda CBR150) 419
24
Martie Bosson/Carmen Agnew/Tarryn Sproates (Yamaha TZR50) 389
25
Peter Hamilton-Brown/Donald Craig/Anthony Lane (Honda CBR150) 381
26
Jannie le Roux/Paul Livings/Schalk Pretorius (Yamaha TZR50) 364
27
Dino de Wet/Dario de Wet/Aran van Niekerk (Honda CBR150) 346
28
Craig van Wyk/Bruce Oberholzer/Timothy Pritchard/Samuel van Eeden (Yamaha TZR50) 187
29
Greg Gildenhuys/Allan-Jon Venter/Dylan White (Honda CBR150) 111