Cape Town - Round 5 of the Mike Hopkins Motorcycles Regional series, at Killarney on Saturday, turned out to be something of a watershed, confirming rising star Brandon Haupt’s position as the top contender for the 2016 title.
Both races on the day were won by international Superstock star David ‘McFlash’ McFadden on the Race Prep GSX-R1000 L5, in only his second appearance of the year on home turf, but more important was that only Haupt of the local riders was able to raise his game to stay with McFlash.
Riding the MxClean ZX-10R, he chased the visiting star all the way home, never more than a length or two in arrears, and put up the fastest lap of the race to come home just 0.008s behind McFadden in an explosive finish.
Behind them, several seconds down and gradually losing ground, was the leader of the Brat Pack, Hayden Jonas, on the Fifty8 Racing ZX-6R. He held off Trevor Westman on the Mad Mac’s ZX-10R for four magic laps until the bigger machine muscled past him down the back straight on lap five, and even then stayed in touch.
But two laps later, hard on the power coming up from Turn 5, he felt the ZX-6R’s engine go flat. He pulled in the clutch lever immediately but it was already too late; the hard-ridden 600cc four had run a big-end, breaking a conrod and punching it through the back of the casings, momentarily setting the bike on fire.
Westman cruised home to an easy third, 11s behind the leaders and seven seconds ahead of Malcolm Rapson on his family-funded ZX-10R.
Fifth, however, was fought out in a race-long five-way battle between Warren Gauntario (Mad Mac’s ZX-6R) Jacques Ackerman on the second Mad Mac’s ZX-10R, Kewyn Snyman (Epic ZX-6R) Mark van den Berg’s Loud and Clear CBR1000 SP and John Oliver on the Glass It R6 – who finished in that order, covered by less than six seconds.
Race 2
Haupt got a killer start when the lights went out for Race 2 to lead McFadden at the end of lap one, but by the end of the next lap normal service had been resumed with McFlash in front and Haupt shadowing his every move – until, by his own admission, he overcooked it going into Turn 3 and, despite a magnificent save, lost a lot of ground.
Nevertheless, he fought back, posting the fastest lap of the day, at 1m11.568s, to close to within a second at the end. Twenty seconds further back however, all hell was breaking loose as Rapson attempted to recover from a dreadful start by cutting his way through a three-way fight for third between Ackerman, Snyman and Guantario.
This turned out to be the dice of the day as the order changed on almost every corner, with Rapson finally hitting the front of the group with two laps to go, and holding on to the flag. Behind him, however, fourth was in doubt right down to the line as Snyman, Guantario and Ackerman finished in that order within considerably less than a second - after a ride that Guantario later described as the most fun he’d had this season.
Powersport/Clubman
With 29 bikes on the grid the Powersport/Clubman field was one of the biggest so far this season, but none of them had an answer for veteran ‘Danie van Killarney’ Maritz, his 30-year-old Suzuki GSX-R750 now reborn with an early 1100cc Gixer engine and quicker than ever.
Maritz won the first race going away, from new Clubman discovery Joske Kotze (Kawasaki ZX-6R) and Powersport stars JP Friederich (Calberg SV650) and Brandon Staffen (Ice Tech/AJH SV650), while hotshot visitor Jonny Towers (head of UK bikewear firm RST) sliced his way through from mid-grid on the RST ER6 to split Friederich and Staffen for fourth.
Towers, Friederich, Kotze and Staffen upped their game for Race 2, not only putting up a superb dice for second but also finishing in that order, with Towers and Friederich only 0.7s and 1.3s respectively adrift of Maritz after a late breakaway from the group.