04 Nov CLOSE CONTESTS AND SPARKLING RACING AT KILLARNEY SHORT-CIRCUIT
The combined CBR150 Junior and Senior races may have dominated the fourth round of Short Circuit Racing at Killarney on Saturday 31 October by sheer weight of numbers but all the categories delivered close contests and sparkling racing – albeit not always for first place.
In the headline category, for instance, Slade van Niekerk was well ahead after four laps of Race 1, while Jason Linaker was chasing down Gareth Dawson in the battle for second when Trevor Hutchings and Donovan Le Cok, battling it out for fifth, collided in the chicane at the start of lap five, bringing out the red flags.
Van Niekerk pulled away from the restart to win by 5.5sec, while Linaker hunted down David Lindemann and ambushed him on the final lap to take second by 0.048sec. Dawson was fourth, just ahead of the dice of the race, which saw Abigail Bosson beat Billy de Beer for fifth by 0.17sec.
When the results of the two-part race were merged, however, the finishing order of the top six on aggregate times was Van Niekerk, Linaker, Dawson, Lindemann, De Beer and Bosson.
Van Niekerk’s winning margin from Linaker in Race 2 was up to 6.6sec, while Lindemann and Dawson put up a memorable scrap for third. Lindemann was ahead when it counted, however, by just 0.42sec.
Nicholas Hutchings salvaged some pride from from a difficult day at the office – a crash in Race 1 and a hard ride from the back of the grid to 12th in Race 2 – with his best effort of the day in Race 3, a noteworthy ride into fourth behind Van Niekerk, Lindemann and Linaker. Dawson blitzed Xavier Parmentier to take fifth by a scant 0.144sec, ahead of hotshot rookie De Beer and the talented Ms Bosson.
Lindemann won all three Super Single races with a rapidly improving Ryan Coetzee second every time, although in the final outing the gap was down to little more than three seconds. Mitch Robinson chased Coetzee all the way in Race 1, swopping places with him twice along the way, and finished only 0.276 adrift after a memorable ride, with Mark Roos a close fourth.
Robinson didn’t get close enough to challenge in the second or third race, however, coming home 0.7sec behind Coetzee in Race 2 and a distant third in Race 3, while Roos put in a late charge in Race 3 to grab a hard-earned fourth.
Despite fielding the smallest entry of the day, the Superkart races produced some of the most exciting racing as Taahir Salie took the Race 1 win from Ebrahim Salie by just 0,056 sec after swopping places twice, with Enus Ishaam third.
Ishaam’s kart went sick in Race 2, however, while Munir Salie, who didn’t start Race 1, made up for it by chasing Taahir all the way to come home little more than a second adrift, with Ebrahim third.
Race 3 saw Ishaam take a distant third after Ebrahim spun out of second in the cut-over on lap two, leaving Munir to follow Taahir home in second and first respectively.
The combined Minimoto and SuperMotard Junior races for riders from five to eight years old delivered all the drama of grown-up racing, with spectacular crashes, kamikaze overtaking moves and late charges – but there was no catching Kai van Rensburg, who won all three races in fine style.
David Lindemann’s younger brother Aaron chased down Riley Coleman and passed him to take second overall and first in the Minimoto class in a closely fought Race 1 duel but had to work hard to stay ahead of a hard-charging Abdul Maalik Dout in Race 2, while Coleman bounced back from a poor showing in the second outing to grab a convincing third overall and second in class in the final outing.
