RACE REPORT: SHORT CIRCUIT 26 June 2021

RACE REPORT: SHORT CIRCUIT 26 June 2021

HOT SHORT-CIRCUIT RACING AT CHILLY KILLARNEY

Neither chilly mid-winter weather with a threat of rain or a cold, damp track could slow down the action at Round 4 of Killarney’s 2021 Short-Circuit series, with more than 60 entries and elbow-to-elbow racing the order of the day.

Slade van Niekerk was unable to continue his domination of the CBR150 class, however, as recurrent fueling problems slowed him down in all three races. He held the lead in Race 1 from the start until three laps from the end, then suddenly slowed as Tristin Pienaar came up from a poor start to challenge for the lead.

Pienaar ran fourth in the early stages but picked up the pace in the second half of the race, passing Van Niekerk on lap eight to win by 1.5 seconds. Third was former SA Super 300 champion Kewyn Snyman, out on a CBR150 for the first time in 16 months, while Nicholas Hutchings got a brilliant start and ran second for most of the race but got it all wrong on lap seven and dropped back to finish fourth.

Snyman, Connor Hagan and Pienaar banged elbows throughout Race 2, with the lead changing on almost every lap during the second half of the race – but it was Snyman who was ahead of Hagan by just 0.387sec when it counted, with early leader Pienaar five seconds adrift in third.

Van Niekerk, meanwhile, battling with his recalcitrant Honda and the midfield pack, put in a stellar ride to finish fifth after completing lap one in ninth.          

The third race was a classic, as Pienaar grabbed the hole-shot, only to be relegated by Van Niekerk on lap two, while Hagan and Snyman debated third. Hagan then put in a stunner on lap six to take the lead and hold it to the end, finishing 1.5 seconds ahead of Pienaar, while Snyman passed Van Niekerk for third on the final lap.

David Lindemann and the GM Contractors R3 led every lap of all three combined Super Single and Super Motard races – but the surprise of the day was young Tristin Pienaar. He entered a little 85cc two-stroke motocross machine fitted with road-racing rubber and stunned the field by passing Jason Linaker for second on lap two and opening a substantial gap to finish 11.6 seconds behind Lindemann and 14 seconds ahead of Linaker.

Then he proved it wasn’t a fluke by doing exactly the same in Race 2, coming home seven seconds behind Lindemann and 15 seconds ahead of Linaker. Something went wrong in Race 3 however, and he wound up stone last at the end of lap one; despite putting in the second quickest lap of the race he still finished a lap down, in 11th overall.

Lindemann, meanwhile, was chased home by Linaker and Super Motard riders Rohan Swanepoel and Matthew Vismer. 

Round 4 saw some of the best Formula M racing to date, with six cars mixing it up on the circuit, led by a top contenders Ryan Kat, Shaakir Halliday and Eudrich Huysamen. Huysamen actually won the first race, leading home Kat and Halliday, with all three covered by just 0.752sec, only to be demoted to third for jumping the start!

Kat led all the way in Race 2 with Halliday and Huysamen in hot pursuit; once again the top three finished within less than a second. Halliday, however, pulled out all the stops in the final outing to lead Kat and Huysamen home by more than seven seconds after passing early leader Kat on lap six.

Riley Coleman took the overall honours for the day in the combined Mini Moto/ Super Motards Junior races, but he didn’t have things all his own. He was chased home in Race 1 by Aaron Lindemann in Race 1, and by Christopher Bosson in Race 2, while Lindemann took line honours in Race 3.