Cape Town - In the absence of some of the major players, Round 1 of the 2016 Mike Hopkins regional motorcycle series at Killarney on Saturday could have been a low-key start to the season, but it turned out to be a real scorcher.
With defending champion Ronald 'The Red Baron' Slamet away at Red Star making his first SuperGP appearance on an S1000RR for BMW Motorrad SA, international star David 'McFlash' McFadden was quite literally in a class of his own on the Suzuki South GSX-R1000 L5, managing both races from the front and leading every lap without any of his signature sideways braking moves.
Behind him, however, the rivalry between Killarney's three 'young guns' broke out into open warfare as Brandon Haupt, Trevor Westman and Gerrit Visser - each on a Kawasaki ZX-10R - ducked and dived and carved each other up all round the circuit, trading places at least once on every lap of a memorable dice.
Epic rides at Cape All Bike Race Day
Then, three laps from the end, Westman tried to go round the outside of both Visser and Haupt in Turn 2 and lost the front end, sliding into the dirt and leaving the other two to settle second between them, as Haupt held on for two nail-biting laps to bring it home less than half a second head, four seconds behind McFlash.
Veteran Malcolm Rapson on the Racebase ZX-10R finished a lonely fourth after a poor start, having spent half the race trying to find a way around Quintin Ebden, out for the first time in seven months and still coming to terms with the new Mitlu R1.
Defending 600 Challenge champion Hayden Jonas had been sidelined by non-arrival of vital parts for his Fifty8 Racing ZX-6R, so the class was fought out between Warren 'Starfish'Guantario, riding the Mad Mac's ZX-6R for the first time, and born-again racer John Oliver on the Glass It R6.
The Challenge pace is at least five seconds a lap quicker than the Powersport racing in which Guantario previously starred, but that didn't seem to worry him as he moved up to pass Oliver and lead the class on lap three. Oliver bided his time, however, got a perfect drive out of Turn 4 on the final lap, blitzed past the Kawasaki on the long back straight and held on to take class honours - and Class B - by 0.18s at the line.
RACE 2
McFadden went away at nearly a second a lap in the second outing to complete his domination of the day but there was mayhem behind him as the ZX-10R wars broke out again.
Visser set the early pace, with Westman and Haupt all over him like a rash, only to take a monumental tumble in Turn 3 on the third lap that saw the bike cartwheeling in the air. For the rest of the race Westman, riding with a severely strained wrist from his earlier crash, gave it everything he had to keep Haupt at bay, holding on to take second by 32 thousandths of a second - the closest finish of the day.
Rapson was only three seconds further down, after making sure not to be caught behind Ebden, but Guantario wasn't so lucky. He had to take evasive action to avoid running into the back of the Mitlu R1 in turn 1 on lap six, went farming and crashed, gifting the 600 Challenge silverware to Oliver, who also won Class B for the day.
POWERSPORTS/CLASSICS
The first race of the season always delivers a couple of surprises - and this time the big one was Jamey Hendricks, who'd been quietly honing his craft on the Bikers Delight CBR400 over the past couple of seasons.
Out for the first time on the Bikers Delight CBR600, he qualified second and led Race 1 from lights to flag, with top Powersport rider JP Friederich a distant second after the Calberg SV650 picked up a nasty misfire.
Next was Elric Everson (Motoworld ZX-6R) at the head of a seven-way battle for third that saw him lead home Shakir 'Shrek' Smith (Entity/VDS/JA CBR1000RR), Mike van Rensburg (MVR ER650), Harry Clifton (MSD ZX-10R), Nick van Zyl (Kawasaki ZX-10R) Chris Williams (DEA ER650) and Paul Medell (Kawasaki ER6), all of whom finished within less than five seconds.
Hendricks' Honda didn't make the start for Race 2, which was highlighted by a seven-way battle for the lead between Elverson, Clifton, Friederich, Van Rensburg, Smith, Williams and Medell, that went on until Clifton outbraked himself into Turn 1 at the start of the final lap.
He rejoined in mid-field and made up a couple of places to finish eighth, while the rest came home in the same order, all six covered by 4.5 seconds.
That gave Elverson, Smith and Clifton the top spots for the day in the Clubmans Class, while Friederich and Calberg team-mate Andrew Liebenberg led the Powersport overall.