Tight racing expected at Boxing Day street race
The margins between success and failure in superbike racing are tiny and this can mean the excitement levels in this sport are massive at the Cemetery Circuit in Whanganui.
But that’s just the way Suzuki Series organiser Allan ‘Flea’ Willacy likes it.
After cut-and-thrust racing at the first two rounds of the series at Taupo and Manfeild, the popular pre-nationals competition will go right down to the wire at the final round on the closed-off public streets of Whanganui on Boxing Day. alarming levels.
Lap times on the Cemetery Circuit are around the 50-second mark, so even the lesser riders soon get caught up in the fighting between the leaders.
‘‘The status and popularity of this series is growing all the time and the riders are really lifting their game to match it. It has been fantastic to see such close racing,’’ Willacysaid.
‘‘It’s some of the best racing I’ve seen and we have guys lapping within a 100th of a second of one another.
‘‘To call it close racing is an understatement.’’
There will, of course, be many battles-within-battles at Whanganui, but if we can boil it all down
‘‘It’s some of the best racing I’ve seen and we have guys lapping within a 100th of a second of one another.’’ Suzuki Series organiser Allan Willacy
to one that should capture the most interest, it will be the muchanticipated showdown between 2016 Suzuki Series leader and defending champion Sloan Frost, the man who is currently second to Frost in the formula one/ superbike class points, six-time former Cemetery Circuit champion Tony Rees and the man who is third in the F1 points, 2014 Suzuki Series winner Horst Saiger.
These three men will now arrive at Whanganui’s famous Cemetery Circuit separated by just eight points and with everything to fight for in what is expected to be another brutal street fight.
If race fans consider that Wellington’s Frost, Whakatane’s Rees and Liechtenstein visitor Saiger might achieve the exact same results they did at Whanganui last season, then Rees (who finished 1-1 in 2015) would again win the day on the Cemetery Circuit and also clinch the Suzuki Series outright for the first time, snatching it away from Frost by just one point.
So the mission is clear for national superbike champion Frost – he must finish ahead of Rees in at least one race at Whanganui and at the same time, also keep the hard-charging Saiger in check.
In addition to these three riders, expect to see 2016 Isle of Man champion Michael Dunlop, from Northern Ireland, Glen Eden’s rising star Daniel Mettam, New Plymouth’s comeback kid Hayden Fitzgerald, Taupo’s Scotty Moir, Manukau’s Toby Summers and visiting British rider James Flitcroft, to be among others also vying for a podium finish.