04 May RACE REPORT – SHORT CIRCUIT 27 April 2021
SHORT CIRCUIT DELIVERS ULTRA-CLOSE RACING
The second round of Short Circuit Racing at Killarney, on Freedom Day, Tuesday 27 April, produced some of the closest racing yet seen in this intensely competitive series, with winning margins in some categories measured in fractions of a second.
Slade van Niekerk won all three races in the headline one-make CBR150 category, but had to fight all the way in the first two outings, swopping places a number of times with arch-rival Connor Hagan. Hagan then went all out in Race 3 in his attempt to deny Van Niekerk a clean sweep and grabbed the lead on lap five – only to overcook it in the chicane a lap later and go up the rallycross jump before rejoining, 10 seconds adrift but still in second.
Tristin Pienaar, son of former SA Superbike star Clinton Pienaar, held an early third in Race 1 but dropped out on lap five, as Abigail Bosson, back on top form after a front suspension rebuild for her HSC CBR150, sliced through from fifth to move into third. On the very last lap, however, HSC team-mate Braddon Hutchings got past to take third by less than a quarter of a second.
Bosson grabbed third again on lap two of their second outing and held on despite a superb late charge from her team-mate, coming home little more than half a second ahead.
Pienaar, who was only able to complete six laps of Race 2, came back with a vengeance in the final showdown, moving up from sixth to third and holding off both HSC riders all the way to the flag, finishing half a second ahead of Hutchings with Ms Bosson a further five seconds adrift in fifth.
David Lindemann led every lap but two of the combined Super Single and SuperMotard races, leading Jason Linaker and Billy de Beer home in Race 1 by an emphatic 11.6 seconds. De Beer and SuperMotard rider Rohan Swanepoel set the early pace in Race 2 but Lindemann was back in front by the end of the second lap and romped home to win from Linaker and De Beer.
De Beer pulled another hot start in Race 3, but dropped back to finish third again as Lindemann and Linaker got into their stride and pulled away in the closing laps.
The Formula M races delivered some spectacular spins as the driver got to grips (or not, in some cases!) with an initially damp and later rather unpredictable circuit.
Darren Liebenberg won all three races but was made to work for it, holding off determined challenges from Ryan Kat and Fuaat Gamiet in the early part of Race 1 before moving away to win by 22 seconds.
Kat and Eudrich Huysamen cut Liebenberg’s advantage to seven seconds in Race 2 after Gamiet spun out of second on lap four and finished stone last. Kat did not come out for the final race, and it was Huysamen who set the early pace ahead of Gamiet and Liebenberg, who then moved past Gamiet and Huysamen on successive laps and powered away to win by almost 18 seconds.
Each of the three Minimoto/Junior Motard races was won by a different rider, with Aaron Lindemann taking Race 1 by the narrowest of winning margins from Christopher Bosson and Storm Williams – all three wewre covered by 0.002sec! It was Williams’ turn in Race 2, however, with Bosson second and Lindemann third, but Race 3 was a bit of an anticlimax as Lindemann ran out of fuel two laps before the end, leaving Bosson to win by 1.13sec from Williams.