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With 158 riders all rearing to go, it was all action.
So close that “there was a scratch on my leathers & my front brake lever broke off”, was Craig Gollop’s comment when he was “zapped” by a 180kph charge to the finishing line by Sean Aitken (Suzuki GSXR1100) in a desperate but successful attempt to pass Gollop’s Suzuki GSXR750 in the first Shoei Helmets A Grade race.
Triple headers came in not less than five classes at today’s 5th Round of the seven round 2000 Suzuki Road Race Series. Triple headers are when one rider wins all three races of a class in a day.
These honours were shared by Kris Shirriffs (Suzuki RG150) from Feilding in the Streetstock 150cc Class, Brian Bernard (Wanganui) on the Open Sport Production , Scott Buckley from Auckland (BSL500GP), Danny McIndoe from Te Awamutu (Suzuki GSXR1100), and Malcolm Bell from Tauranga (Ducati 900SL) in the newly instigated Shaft Motorcycles “D” grade class. This “D” class resulted from swelling entries in the “C” grade class.
That doesn’t mean that all of these wins were a push overs. In the Streetstock 150 Class, Kris Shirriffs had to deal with a very determined South Island challenger in the form of Daniel Jansen and the new hot little Honda NSR150RR, when class series leader Derek McAdam’s bike temporarily went off song. But Jansen took longer to adapt than he hoped, and scored 0 points in the second race, salvaging to a 4th place in the 3rd, finishing 6th overall. However McAdam & his Kawasaki KR150 came back with a vengeance in the second & third of these class races, to get alongside Shirriffs several times, but it was always the Ware Contractors Suzuki RG150 at the finish line, where it mattered.
While Wanganui’s Brian Bernard & his Suzuki GSXR750 won all three Pirelli Open Sports Production classes from Waikanae’s Bruce Telford on the beautiful Robbie Dean Aprilia “Mille, it wasn’t really as easy as that as Telford closed on Bernard several times. Behind them were the always brave Suzuki riders, Craig Gollop (Upper Hutt) & Mt. Wellington’s Lance Lowe.
The 600cc Pirelli Tyres class within the same race was a battle between two “green & mean” machines of Troy O’Donoghue (Palmerston North) & Auckland’s Glen Williams – their Kawasaki ZX6R bikes being almost equal all around the circuit. They were backed up by a trio of Suzuki GSXR600 of Andrew Bretherton (New Plymouth), Bruce Hansen (Normanby) and up & coming new rider Aucklander John Fallwell.
Then came the Shoei Helmets “A” Grade races, where the spectators had turned out to see the real raw speed of the BSL500 Grand Prix bikes. They were not disappointed. Lapping at faster than 1 minute & 10 seconds around the Manfeild circuit, charging through from a fifth row grid position the immaculate orange & black BSL’s of Scott Buckley & Steven Briggs arrowed through the traffic, especially down the back straight. Buckley picked up three wins from three starts, Bernard three second places, & Sean Aitken, just returned from a 3 month business trip to Asia getting quickly back in the groove riding a well modified Suzuki GSXR1100.
Aitken’s highly modified big 1100 Suzuki fits right into the Formula Xtreme specifications. He took a while to “get in the groove”, getting a second, then a third before winning the last race from series leader Brian Bernard. But it was Bruce Telford & his Robbie Dean Aprilia “Mille” that won the day overall, with first, second & third places, despite an enormous power slide in the last race, when trying an overtaking move on the leaders.
Hawkes Bay appeared in force in the 125GP/250 Production Aprilia Down Under Motorcycles races. Brent Symes and Bruce Godfrey took first & second respectively in each race, but Palmerston North’s Regan Griffiths, also riding a Honda RS125 maintained his series lead with 3 solid 3rd places.
Glen Tanner\'s 32 point lead was whittled away to just 8 by Bill van den Hoven & his Yamaha FZR400. Tanner had an engine failure during practice, so borrowed another Honda which “saved his bacon”, but a mother nature call was just averted in the last race, relegating him to 15th place. But it was another Griffiths, Scott, who won all three races in the Blue Wing Honda Formula 3 Plus class to hold a solid 3rd place overall in the series.
The 2000 Suzuki Road Race Series is proudly supported by – Yamaha, Shaft Motorcycles, Blue Wing Honda, Kiwi Rider, Suzuki, Red Baron Motorcycles, Aprilia Motorcycles, Bike Mart, Kawasaki, Motorcycle Trader & News, RK Chain, Shoei Helmets, & the best Sports production tyre available - Pirelli.
