Cape Town - Graeme Green and Warren Guantario did all that was expected of them and more in the Mike Hopkins Regional Motorcycle races run at Killarney as part of the weekend’s Super Series meeting.
The Powersport rivals, each on a Kawasaki ER6F, delivered two thrilling duels that went right down to line; the winning margin in the second race was just 42 thousandths of a second – about half a wheel in real terms.
But the drama started, with a light drizzle in qualifying that made the grid something of a lottery for most of the top runners, with the exception of Brandon Storey and his bright pink Suzuki SV650. Storey is rapidly gaining a reputation as something of a rainmaster; he qualified second behind Green, while Guantario was more than a second off the pace in sixth.
By race time, however, the sun was breaking through the overcast and the track was dry, albeit lacking in grip due to oil and rubber deposited by four-wheeled competitors.
Green got the hole shot in Race 1, only to be blitzed into Turn 1 by both Guantario, who got a cracking start off the second row, and Storey. By the end of lap two, however, Story had been demoted to fourth by Green and ‘Flying Dutchman’ Jan-Lucas de Vos, out on Danie Maritz’s championship-winning 1985 GSX-R750 and enjoying the classic Suzuki’s usable power and predictable handling.
David Bolding had failed to set a qualifying lap aboard ‘Big Bertha’, his Suzuki Katana, and had to start from the back of the grid. By the end of lap one he had passed everyone except the leading five and was all over JP Friederich’s Calberg SV650 like a rash, while Green had outbraked both Storey and De Vos to move up to second.
It took Green another three laps to reel in the leader and set up a pass, diving down the inside into Turn 1 to grab a lead he was to hold to the end, although he was unable to shake Guantario, who finished little more than half a second behind, while De Vos settled for a safe if lonely third, 14 seconds adrift and 10 seconds ahead of an explosive dice for fourth that saw Bolding, Storey and Tim Clark (riding a GSX-R750 that was two years older than he was!) finish in that order within two seconds of each other after Bolding used the Katana’s huge straight-line speed to muscle past Storey on the final lap.
Four seconds later, Chris Williams (Kawasaki ER6) held off a determined late charge from similarly-mounted Mike van Rensburg to take seventh by just 0.121sec.
RACE 2
The second race started with bad luck for Storey, whose SV650 went sick on the warm-up lap, leaving pole position open; then De Vos pulled a monster wheelie off the line and had to back off to avoid flipping Maritz’s classic Suzuki, while veteran racer Paul Medell on the Cape Bike Travel SV650 pulled a magic start to join Green and Guantario on the rush down to Turn 1.
Halfway through the first lap, however, the GSX-R750’s gearbox began making expensive noises and, rather than wreck the engine, De Vos took the old lady into the pits.
That left Green in charge after he got the best of the first three corners, with Guantario and Medell hard on his heels, and Bolding and Van Rensburg rapidly closing on Medell.
Nobody could match the pace set by the Princes of Powersport, however; they were in a class of their own, pulling away at about three seconds a lap, never more than a bike length apart.
On lap two Green very nearly threw it away in Turn 5, pulling off the save of a lifetime to keep the shiny side up, but ran wide, allowing Guantario to dive through into the lead.
Behind them an epic six-way battle for third was shaping up between Bolding, Clark, Williams and Van Rensburg, as Medell dropped back through the order.
On lap five Green outbraked Guantario into Turn 5, grabbing the most tenuous of leads, as Bolding used the power of the Katana to move up into third – but neither Clark nor Williams was willing to concede the place. Going into Turn 2 on the final lap Clark dived down the inside of Bolding; seconds later Williams went round the outside of both!
Green and Guantario swopped places twice on the final tour, crossing the line just 0.042sec apart, with Green in front when it mattered. Bolding, meanwhile, laid the hammer down on the back straight, rode the world’s widest Katana round Turn 5 and led Clark, Williams, Van Rensburg, Medell and Andrew Liebenberg (Calberg ER6) home, all six crossing the line in 2.5sec.
Eight seconds later JP Friederich (Calberg SV650) had to give it everything he had to avoid being beaten by a 400, after a race-long duel with former Powersport star Hilton Redlinghuys’ Honda RVF400.