LOCAL PUPIL REVS HIGH IN SUPER JUNIOR MOTORCYCLE CLASS
Historic racing event at Aldo Scribante sees close contest of the classics
ONE of the motorsport events which is attracting great interest is historic racing. There are a lot of “golden oldies” gathering dust in garages around the country and the historic series is an opportunity for many to get these cars on the track once again.
Last weekend at the Aldo Scribante Race Circuit these cars were put to the test. The Dunlop Eastern Cape Historic Series joined the Algoa Motorsport Club Masthead Financial Planning Historic Series, making up a field of 33 cars with competitors from East London and a strong Port Elizabeth contingent.
After a day of close competition the Capri Perana of Chris Blom made a clean sweep of it, winning three out of three with Nigel Bricknell (Skyline), Johan Barnard (Kadette) and Ian Thomson (Rekord) left to fight out the remaining positions in class B.
Class C had 13 competitors, making for close and exciting racing with Chris Radloff (Toyota Corona) emerging victorious.
The dice of the day had to be between Brendan Smith (Ford Escort), Ryno Burger (Alfa Junior), Mathew Gudmanz (Mazda Capella) and Johan Coetzee (Porsche 911) with the lead changing hands every lap.
Class D was a hard-fought affair with Andrew Karshagen winning.
Other news on the local racing front, this time featuring bikes, is that local lad Dominic Doyle is showing great potential.
Dominic, 13, achieved third position in the SuperJunior Class on his KTM RC390 Motorcycle at the weekend at the Phakisa circuit near Welkom.
Dominic is a Grade 8 pupil at Pearson and has been involved in circuit racing for three years. Before that he was involved in motocross.
The new SuperJunior category, on KTM RC390 machines, was shaping up to be a three-way battle, based on the morning qualifying session.
Dorren Loureiro, Cameron Aitken and William Friend were substantially quicker than the other riders.
Friend’s bike wouldn’t start in time for him to make it onto the grid for the first race, so he had to start from the pit lane.
This made for a two-way fight for the lead for the first half of the race between Loureiro and Aitken. Aitken fell near the half-way mark, leaving Loureiro to take an easy win.
Friend worked his way through from last place after his pit lane start to cross the line second with Luca Coccioni third.
Dominic Doyle, Jenna Eekhout and Reinhald Joubert rounded out the top six.
In the absence of Aitken, who damaged his shoulder in his firstrace crash, it was left to Loureiro and Friend to fight it out for victory in race two.
Loureiro looked to have it in the bag but the front of his bike washed out on the final corner, allowing Friend to take the flag.
Loureiro had to settle for sixth. Coccioni and Doyle finished second and third with Eekhout fourth and Joubert fifth.
Dominic has been involved in the Honda NSF100 training programme, and raced with the adults at Scribante earlier this year where he did very well.
His father, Ronnie, is trying to get sponsorship for him to continue with the KTM series and beyond.