18 Jul RACE REVIEW – LIVINGSTONE BATHS 4 HOUR – 15 JULY 2023
EPIC DUEL HIGHLIGHTS LIVINGSTONE BATHS 4 HOUR
The highlight of Round 2 of the Livingstone Baths Endurance Racing series for lightweight motorcycles over four hours on the Killarney Karting circuit on Saturday 15 July was an epic battle between the two leading teams that saw them finish just 9.5 seconds apart after a record 285 laps of intense, cliff-hanger racing.
Adrian Solomons on the HSC Racing CBR150 grabbed the holeshot from the traditional Le Mans Start to lead the charge for the first six laps, but dropped right back on lap seven, while the Powerflow CBR150 (Nian du Toit and Kewyn Snyman) and Project Sixty SA (Trevor Westman and teenage hotshots Slade van Niekerk and Tristin Pienaar) fired the first shots in a battle that would go all the way to the line.
They reeled off 72 laps in the first hour, which ended with Powerflow holding a 34-second lead; Sunscan Solar (Max Munton and Jason Linaker) were third, two laps behind, with No Rush Racing (Jimmy Pantony, Paul Medell and Gerrit Visser Sr, who between them have more than a century of motorcycle racing experience) and Olibert (Daker hero Albert Hintenaus and his son Oliver) fourth and fifth respectively on 68 laps.
At the midway mark the gap was less than a second, but Powerflow was one lap ahead, having completed 144 to Project Sixty SA’s 143. Munton and Linaker were quietly holding station in third, three laps down, with Olibert a distant fourth on 133 laps.
By halfway through the third hour, the gap had opened up to a lap and 14 seconds, at which point Westman and his two young team-mates turned up the heat and began reeling in the leaders, metre by metre. At the end of the third hour they were back on the same lap, just 13 seconds adrift, having held the lead briefly during the hour.
With an hour to go Solarscan were holding a solid third, six laps down, with Olibert fourth, a further 9 laps behind.
Six laps into the final hour, Project Sixty SA grabbed the lead and within half an hour they had put a lap on the Powerflow riders, who responded by sending Kewyn Snyman out for the final stint with instructions to “Go for it!”
The former South African SSP300 champion put in the ride of the day to close to within 9.5 seconds, but 5:30pm came up before he was close enough to challenge for the lead, and Powerflow came home an heroic second. Third, 11 laps adrift, were Sunscan Solar, with the Hintenaus machine fourth, a further nine laps down, three laps ahead of HSC’s Adrian Solomons, Braddon Hutchings and Nicholas Hutchings, who quietly got on with it and worked their way back from second-last to finish a creditable fifth. Mention must also be made of Willies Service Centre’s William Morries, however. Mag Workshop’s Mitch Robinson had invited up-and-coming teenager Ethan Diener from Gqeberha to join his team for the event, but when the Mag Workshop CBR150 fried its ignition wiring four laps after halfway, Morries was quick to offer the disappointed Eastern Cape youngster a spot on his team, “Because it’s all about having fun!”