Fast and furious action at Dezzi Raceway despite lockdown
DURBAN - Young two-wheel speedster, Blaze Baker, made an emphatic return to the track at Dezzi Raceway, Oslo Beach at the weekend, comfortably winning both heats of the 300 Class motorcycles aboard his Kawasaki.
The 300 Class runs in conjunction with Powersports and 150 Class motorcycles and in the opening heat Baker powered away to win from the Honda of Llewelyn Puren with the Yamaha of Duncan Day not far behind. In Heat 2, Baker again made the break from the start and pulled out a two second gap over Puren with third place this time occupied by another young two-wheel sensation, Lee Singh.
Having his first season in the 300 Class aboard a Yamaha, Singh showed excellent form to take third place overall – his fourth in heat one enough to earn him second place overall for the day.
FOUR WHEELS
Even with a slightly thinner field than usual, the Modified category produced some fine four-wheel racing with Henk Lombard (VW Scirocco) winning the opening encounter for the day from Ronald van Rensburg (VW Golf) and Keegan Samson (VW Golf). In fact, both Lombard and Van Rensburg were winners – the former in the Super Modified category and the latter in Class A of the Modifieds.
Heat two saw Elton Fuchs in his fire-breathing Super Modified VW Golf narrowly beat Van Rensburg across the line with Samson again filling third sport.
In the overall results for the day, Fuchs won Super Modifieds from Byron Oliver with Hank Lombard taking Class A honours from Ronald van Rensburg and Pierre Potgieter. Class B went the way of Gary Commins from George Purchase and John Montanari. Class C belonged to Greg Bennet with Jonathan Swan second ahead of Charmaine Petzer.
OFF-ROAD/ON-ROAD
Motard riders appear to have zero fear levels and it showed in two hectic heats of racing with Anton Nesbitt taking line honours in both heats to beat out Hayden Louw and Liaan Smit. The fact the first eight places repeated from heat one to heat two belies the intensity of the competition as the tightly bunched pack jostled for position through the two races.
As always, the immaculately turned out Retro Racing contingent also produced some great action, especially the battle at from between the Ford Escorts of Reg Sutton and Meredith Willis – the paid finishing in that order in both heats and ahead of Alistair Webster (Dart).
Brian Martin won the opening heat for Sports Cars/Super GT in his 4,0-litre Super GT Backdraft Roadster with John Oliver (Lotus 7) in second place and first in the Sports Car category. However, in the second heat, Chris Wooley in the Benneton Lotus 7 turned the tables on everyone and crossed the line nearly a second ahead of Martin with Mark Futcher (Lotus 7) in third place.
In the overall standings for the day Martin won the Super GT class from Mike McLoughlin (Backdraft Roadster) and Gareth Pearce (Backdraft Roadster).
Drew Gates continued his strong run of form in the 150 Super Production motorcycle category, winning both heats by two and three seconds respectively from Hayden Louw in the first outing and Zane Davidson in the second. Forrest Brown was third in the opening heat with Llewelyn Puren taking that spot in the second.
This highly competitive class uses identical Honda CBR 150 motorcycles. The 150 Class overall went to Felix Kroeber from Tai Robinson and Lee Singh with the 150 Master going the way of Arthur Moller followed by Sven Christenson and Florian Kroeber.
The final category, Formula Extreme, went to Liaan Smit with Aston Nesbitt second and Marc Nel third.
Colin Windell