Cape Town – On a race-day dedicated to showcasing young, up-and coming riders, it was ironic that the star of the show at the second round of the Mike Hopkins Motorcycles regional series at Killarney on Saturday was a 53-year-old rider with 40 years of riding under his wheels, riding a 30-year-old motorcycle.
With the Superbike classes taking a bye, the organisers were able to schedule a Breakfast Run Grand Prix for riders who had never before held a racing licence, as well as races for the Powersport and Clubman feeder classes.
Then multiple former regional champion turned ace tuner ‘Danie van Killarney’ Maritz, who is on record as racing a 50cc motorcycle on the ‘K’ short circuit in 1977 at the age of 13, hauled out his 1986 Suzuki Pre-Sling for the first time this year and put it on pole for the day’s headline races, the Clubmans’.
Maritz got a poor start in Race 1, and found himself pushed down to fourth behind Simon Augustyn (Jack’s Paint S1000 RR), Alastair Hyatt (Cane Industries CBR1000RR) and Fran Engelbrecht (Motorcycles and Bits GSX-R750). By the end of lap two, however, he was up to second behind Augustyn as Engelbrecht’s smaller Suzuki began to lose ground on the straights.
For the next five laps Augustyn, Maritz and Hyatt put up a superb dice, swopping the lead three times before Maritz put the hammer down on the final lap to win by almost two seconds from Augustyn and Hyatt. Ten seconds later Dylan Wright (Triumph 675 Daytona) got the best of a race-long dice with Johan Maritz (Bakgat CBR1000RR) to take fourth by just 0.044s.
Race 2
Crowd favourite ‘Danie van Killarney’ pulled a textbook start in Race 2 and romped away to win by almost 15 seconds, with Augustyn, Hyatt and Wright indulging in a spirited tussle for second before finishing in that order. William Binedell (Dog Box GSX-R600) held off a late charge from Peter Hobday (Amberfones ZX-10R) to take fifth with Engelbrecht, Derek Hendricks (Bikers Delight R6), Jacques Brits (Lize Signs S1000RR) and Jonathan de Lange (Dunlop R6) all finishing within six seconds of Binedell after a magnificent midfield battle.
PowerSport
New father JP Friederich (Calberg SV650) stomped all over the first Powerport race, with only Chris ‘the Green Goblin’ Williams to keep him honest, six seconds adrift at the line. Thirty seconds later, however the battle for third went all the way to the line as Maxim Mandix (ASAP World ER650), Jacques Botha (Trac-Mac ER650), Juan Liebenberg (Trac-Mac ER650) and Ezio Miglietta (Kawasaki ER650) all finished within two seconds after a race-long dice.
The Goblin got his game on for Race 2, leading the first three laps and staying with Friederich all the way, showing him a wheel on more than one occasion, but was unable to make a pass that would stick and finished 1.042s adrift after a superb tussle with the acknowledged master of this class.
An early four-way battle for third broke up into two duels, with Mandix and Gareth Gehlig (Formula Autos SV650) carving each other up on almost every corner, but with Mandix ahead when it counted by the smallest margin of the day – 13 thousandths of a second!
Fifth went to Botha by 1.651s from Liebenberg.
Samurai Racing’s Sam Lockoff was the only rider in the entry-level RC390 class to finish on the same lap as the big bikes, thereby officially winning each race by one lap.
Behind him, however, the entire field of six identical machines (with the exception of Gareth Dawson who went farming on lap five) finished within 16 seconds in Race 1 and 19 seconds in Race 2 after some of the most cut-and-thrust racing of the day.
Breakfast Run Grand Prix
The newcomers’ races were a BMW S1000RR benefit, with Romano di Leva winning both outings from Shakier Brenner (by just 0.28s in Race 2!) and Lee Engel. They weren’t slow either; Di Leva’s best lap of 1m18.168s would have qualified him on the fifth row of the grid for the previous Superbike races in March.
The second race was a real thriller, with fierce dices throughout the field; the closest of which was when Nur Hendricks (BMW S1000RR) beat Olivier Feuillette for fourth by a scant 0.137s.