Zwartkops Raceway, Pretoria – Heavy rain, coupled with oil on the circuit, brought a premature end to the third round of the SuperGP Champions Trophy held at Zwartkops Raceway on Saturday.
While dry morning sessions allowed all the lower class races to go off without a hitch, the premier category SuperGP riders weren’t as lucky. Rain started falling just before they left the pits, and despite them changing onto wet tyres, a huge crash on the opening lap brought out the red flags and ultimately an end to the day’s racing.
Clint Seller (MiWay Yamaha Racing R1) went just a tenth of a second slower than his Zwartkops lap record in Friday’s qualifying session to secure pole position, and Lance Isaacs (SupaBets/Sandton BMW S1000RR) and Brandon Goode (Linex Yamaha R1) completed the front row. Daryn Upton (Paramount Tracks/Fourways Motorcycles Kawasaki ZX10R), Michael White (Consortium Shipping Yamaha R1) and Greg Gildenhuys (Autohaus Towing Kawasaki ZX10R), who were all within a second of Seller’s time, filled the second row of the grid.
Things didn’t get off to a good start in Saturday afternoon’s headline race, as Ivan van Niekerk lost the front end of his Harki Recon Engineering Kawasaki ZX10 on the warm-up lap, and collected White in the process. Then another crash involving Gildenhuys, Isaacs, Nicolas Kershaw, Gareth Laverick, and AJ Venter shortly after the start put an end to the day’s racing once and for all.
Super600
Earlier in the day, Steven Odendaal (Petra Yamaha R6) won the Super600 class from pole position, with Hayden Jonas (MiWay R6) following in second. A four-way fight for third between Jesse Boshoff (Phoenix Payroll Systems ZX6), Blaze Baker (Uncle Andy Racing Suzuki GSXR600), Aiden Liebenberg (Shop #74 ZX6) and Malcolm Rudman (Montclair Motorcycles ZX6), ended with Liebenberg stealing the final podium step with a last corner move.
SuperJunior
In the one-make KTM RC390 category Taric van der Merwe (Evolve Nutrition) was handed pole position after the quickest man, Ricardo Otto, was found to have an underweight bike. He then converted the spot to a win, with Tyreece Robert and Luca Coccioni coming second and third, 13 seconds later.
Pole sitter Shaun Jubber (RAD Moto KTM RC12) crashed out early in the BOTTS race leaving Jade Gutzeit (Dezzi Raceway Ducati Panagale) and Keagan Wessels (Moto Rentals KTM RC8) to fight it out for the win. There was almost nothing in it at the flag, but Gutzeit was far enough in front to claim the win. Thomas Brown (Rehab Racing Ducati Panigale) completed the podium.