NO SHORTAGE
OF THRILLS
AND SPILLS
by Andy McGechan
here was a reduction in the number
of races, but there was certainly no
shortage of thrills at the opening round
of this season’s New Zealand Superbike
Championships near Christchurch on
January 5-6.
The Mike Pero Motorsport Park, at
Ruapuna, hosted the first of five rounds for
the 2019 series with all the usual fanfare
and fireworks, featuring plenty of close
racing and even revealing a few fresh names
appearing on the timing sheets.
Unfortunately the meeting was cut short
after a major oil spill during the weekend’s
second of three sidecars races, shortly after
midday on Sunday, and, “in the interests of
rider safety”, the event was “declared”, with
further racing therefore cancelled.
“There was an incident with an engine
failure in a sidecars race and about five
litres of oil was spread over about 500m
metres of track,” said Motorcycling New
Zealand road-race co-commissioner Grant
Ramage.
He confirmed that at least one race was
able to be run for all but one class, the
Supersport 600cc class riders missing out
after their sole race on the Saturday was
red-flagged after just two laps following a
rider crash.
The sidecar spillage happened just before
the Supersport 600 was due on the track for
their first outing of the weekend on Sunday
afternoon.
The Grand Prix title races, traditionally the
third race of the weekend for each class,
were therefore not run at Ruapuna and
Ramage said they would be included in the
programme at round two of the series, at
Levels International Raceway, near Timaru,
the following weekend.
“We may also be able to catch-up the lost
races at Levels, although we can’t start that
meeting earlier in the day or finish it any
later, because of resource consent.
“It’s disappointing we had to stop racing at
Ruapuna. However, what racing we did have
was pretty amazing,” said Ramage.
“All races were very competitive and several
new faces revealed themselves, with all bike
brands well represented, so it was a great
success from that point of view.”
The most successful rider of the weekend
was Whakatane’s Damon Rees, who
qualified fastest in the premier superbike
class and the dominated the event from
there.
Rees led from start to finish in the first of
three superbike races planned for the two-
day event.
He crossed the line an impressive 6.5
seconds ahead of the runner-up rider,
Christchurch man Alastair Hoogenboezem,
that result sending an early warning shot to
his superbike rivals.
KIWI RIDER 15