25 Mar RACE REPORT – BIKES 20 March 2021 EXTREME FESTIVAL
McFLASH SHOWS THEM THE WAY HOME IN NGK SA SBK AT KILLARNEY
Local hero David ‘McFlash’ McFadden (Stunt SA/RPM Centre R1) dominated proceedings in the NGK SA Superbike races at Round 1 of the 2021 Extreme Festival national racing series, run at Killarney on Saturday 20 March, showing seven times champion Clinton Seller and the brand new King Price CBR1000RR-R the way home in both races.
Their only serious rival, Garrick Vlok, picked up a rear suspension gremlin on his DCCS Yamaha R1 on lap three of Race 1 that almost pitched him off the bike and slowed him down to the point where he was very nearly caught by local youngsters Brett Roberts (Lights by Linea R6) and Brandon Staffen (AJH Cooling R6) who were having their own private shootout on the only two 600s in the field.
In the end it was Staffen who was ahead when it mattered, by just 0.054sec, while another local, Jonathan Schwerin on a brand new BMW S1000RR, headed the Bridgestone Superbikes category in sixth overall.
Vlok had another huge moment on only the second lap of Race 2 and decided that not crashing was the better part of valour, retiring the misbehaving Yamaha to the pits. Seller, meanwhile, knocked nearly a second off his best lap times in Race 1 and gave McFlash a much harder race, finishing only three seconds in arrears.
Once again, however, it was the two 600cc riders who delivered the dice of the race, swapping places several times in their battle for third overall – which went to Roberts by less than a second.
Schwerin took Bridgestone Superbike line honours again, in fifth overall.
Sunbet ZX-10 Masters Cup champion Graeme van Breda, a former SA Superbike champion who knows Killarney as well as any local, came to Cape Town expecting two easy wins, only to get mugged by three locals – David Enticott, Rob Cragg and Jacques Ackerman, in two epic races.
In the first, Enticott recovered from a near-crash exiting Turn 3 to grab the lead from Van Breda on lap seven, while Cragg demoted the champion to third on the same lap. Enticott then put in the two fastest laps of the day to finish almost five seconds clear of the pack, with Cragg, Van Breda and Ackerman following him in that order, all three covered by 0.559sec.
Cragg took the early lead in Race 2, but was relegated by Van Breda on lap three. What followed was the stuff of legend, as the top four raced nose to tail for eight thrilling laps. Cragg managed to get past Van Breda three laps from the end and held off a determined challenge to win by just 0.005 (five thousanths of a second) with Enticott third and Ackerman fourth as all four crossed the line covered by 0.752sec!