Cape Town – With no entries received from either David “McFlash” McFadden or Ronald “The Red Baron “ Slamet, Round 2 of the Mike Hopkins Motorcycles regional series at Killarney on Saturday will be fought out between the young guns - Trevor Westman, Gerrit Visser and Brandon Haupt, each on a Kawasaki ZX-10R.
Each has also proved that on his day he has the beating of the other two – but only by the narrowest of margins. On current form these three riders are so evenly matched that predicting a winner would be foolhardy but it is safe to say the racing at the sharp end of the superbike field on Saturday will be desperately close.
Right behind them will be the top 600 Challenge riders – defending double champion Hayden Jonas on the Fifty8 Racing ZX-6R, John Oliver’s Glass It R6 and the Mad Mac’s ZX-6R of Powersport graduate Warren Guantario. Jonas’ new machine wasn’t ready for the opening round of the season, so his form remains an unknown quantity, but on past history the talented teen must start as favourite.
Class B, with a 13-bike field, is wide open – although the bikes to watch are the ASAP World ZX-6R’s of father and son Karl and Jared Schultz, who missed Round 1 due to SuperGP commitments.
The form men in Class B are Leroy Malan on the LM Racing ZX-10R, Jacques Ackerman (Jotim R1) and Klint Munton on the Sunscan ZX-10R, but experience has shown that the form book means little in Class B once the flag drops.
POWERSPORT AND CLUBMANS
JP Friederich (Calberg SV650) is the man with form in the 650cc twin-cylinder Powersport class – but he’s not entered, leaving the field wide open for Chris Williams (DEA ER650), Mike van Rensburg (MVR Racing ER650) and veteran Paul Medell to settle matters between them.
The dark horse in this class, however, is short-circuit teen Brandon Staffen, out for the first time on the Keating and Jansen SV650. This very young rider has displayed huge talent in the feeder classes and, if that promise can be translated to the main circuit, he will be a force to be reckoned with.
Another youngster suddenly upping his game this season is Clubman contender Jamey Hendricks who won the first race outright on the Biker Delight CBR600 in his last outing. However, he’ll have to contend with the vastly experienced Shakir ‘Shrek’ Smith (Entity CBR1000RR), Nick van Zyl (InterSped ZX-10R) and Harry Clifton (MSD ZX-10R).