The country’s most spectacular racing show will perform at the Western Cape Killarney circuit next Saturday (March 15). The occasion will be Rounds 3 and 4 of the 2003 South African Superbike Championship, on centre stage during the national Vodacom Power Tour’s only Western Cape visit of the year. –
– Topping the entry list and title chase at Killarney will be multiple – and current – South African Champion Russell Wood. Leading the works Autopage Cellular Yamaha team, Wood won both of the year’s opening races around AA Kyalami three weekends ago. He will be hoping for a repeat performance in the Cape, supported by fellow Autopage Cellular Yamaha rider Greg Dreyer. Following a high-speed crash at Kyalami, Capetonian Dreyer will take to his home circuit with a broken right foot. That should not concern the veteran racer much. He and Wood tested the Autopage Cellular equipe’s new Yamaha YZF-R6 models at Killarney last week, and were delighted with the results. –
– Taking them on with identical new Yamaha YZF-R6 entries will be the First Technology team’s Arushen Moodley, Shaun Whyte and Alex Lenearts. Moodley and Whyte shared the Kyalami podium with Russell Wood, and both will dearly wish to take over the top step this time out. –
– The Killarney races will certainly not be an all-Yamaha affair. The works Cell C Suzuki team will field five riders on GSXR600 models, led by 2001 South African Champion Stewart MacLeod. Backing him will be a mix of youthful speed and veteran racecraft, in the persons of Noel Haarhoff, Hudson Kennaugh and Trevor Crookes. At a slight top speed disadvantage, the Suzuki riders will hope to beat the Yamaha R6 squad on Killarney’s tight and tricky infield section. –
– Returning to local circuit racing after an absence of three years, the factory Inala Kawasaki team showed impressive pace, first time out at Kyalami.Young chargers Garth Norris and Greame van Breda took their Kawasaki ZX6RR models to the day’s respective seventh and eighth places. The team has been hard at work the past three weeks, and expect to narrow the gap between themselves and the pace-setting Yamahas at Killarney. –
– Hoping for a clean run and points in the bag will be JHB Ducati 748R racer Clinton Pienaar. The official factory entries will be rounded out by Charles Grassie (Autopage Cellular Yamaha) and John Oliver (Cell C Suzuki). Topping the Privateer entry will be Capetonian Robert Cragg, the logical victory favourite with a Suzuki GSXR600K2 on his home circuit. Challenging him will be the likes of Kawasaki ZX-6RR riders Gavin Ramsay, Mike Dickinson and Sheridan Morias, Robert Portman (Ducati 748R), plus Suzuki GSXR600 racers Arran Brown and Daniel Swanepoel. –
– As was the case at Kyalami, the Superbike brigade will tackle a short Sprint race in the morning, followed by a longer Feature race in the afternoon. At Killarney, the two races are scheduled for ten-, and 15 laps respectively, with riders on the same tyres that they used during Saturday morning’s Official Qualifying session. –
– “It is a good format, which forces riders to take factors like tyre preservation and fatigue into consideration.” “Even so, we expect two no-holds-barred, ultra-close races, which should have the always enthusiastic Killarney crowd on its feet,” said Mr Barry Scholtz, Chairman of the South African Motorcycle Racing Association.
