29 BIKES STARTED, 22 FINISHED

+ Click to Enlarge THEY CAME, THEY SAW, THEY ENDURED: The RST team - (from left) Hudson Kennaugh, Martin Paetzold, Jonny Towers and Trevor Westman - completed 538 laps of Killarney's "K" circuit to win the 2009 8 Hour. Images: Dave Abrahams

December 15, 2009
By Dave Abrahams

In the end, they say, there can be only one – but each of the 22 bikes (of 29 starters) still running at the end of the 28th annual Eight Hour endurance race at Killarney at the weekend was a winner.

The Eight Hour is open to teams of up to four riders on two-stroke machines up to 65cc or four-strokes up to 155cc and it's run on the seriously tight and twisty one-kilometre "K" circuit at Killarney – only this year it was run anti-clockwise to reduce home-track advantage!

After nearly three decades this end-of-season club event has acquired cult status, attracting top National and International riders and even – for the second consecutive year – a two-bike "works" team from Honda SA.

But the hot favourites were the RST CBR150 team of Trevor Westman, Jonny Towers, former SA champion Hudson Kennaugh and suspension guru Martin Paetzold, and the Showtime CBR150 of local heroes Luca Agostinelli, Warren Guantario, JP Friedrich and David McFadden

But it was Bernard Haupt on the Van Rensburg/Hall/Haupt/Wasserfall CBR150 who had a perfect start to take the early lead from Jacques Peskens on the Wackem Racing CBR150, Michael Wahl (Wahl/Williams/Van den Berg CBR150) and Wesley Jones on the Craigs CBR150.

Each of the favourites had a poor start – McFadden wound up seventh and Kennaugh way down in 18th. Each immediately set about carving his way through the field, overtaking slower riders wherever they could in the mayhem of the opening laps.

McFadden set a killer pace, running consistently at about 50 seconds a lap and by lap 9 he was up to second. On lap 20 he put in the third fastest lap of the day, a blistering 49.799, to take the lead and 10 laps later Kennaugh relegated the early leader to third.

After 33 laps Haupt handed the bike over to Sharl Wasserfall who gradually lost ground until he crashed on lap 43, which cost the team a lot of time and took them out of contention.

But at the front the RST and Showtime bikes were going at it was if it was a sprint race, swopping the lead twice in the second half-hour.

At the one-hour mark the Showtime bike was a lap ahead thanks to a hot stint from 14-year-old Luca Agostinelli, with Wackem Racing third and the works Honda Race Nation team of National Superbike racers Greg Gildenhuys and Allan-Jon Venter (the only two-rider team in the race) circulating steadily in fourth.

They weren't the fastest riders out there (neither went quicker than 51 seconds all day) but neither put a wheel wrong all day either and their pit work was exemplary, which paid off in the end.

The RST team moved back into the lead on lap 93 and after two hours (and 133 laps) they were a lap ahead of Showtime, with Race Nation and Wackem Racing 18sec apart, two laps further down.

FRANTIC FEW MINUTES

At the three-hour mark it was becoming obvious that nobody was going to stay with the leaders, who were 67sec apart after 205 laps, while Race Nation and Wackem were only 26sec apart but six laps down. Then, nine minutes into the fourth hour, McFadden was involved in a huge five-bike crash at Hoals Hoek, which dropped Showtime to 12th and, ultimately, decided the race.

The team quickly repaired the bike's broken left footpeg but in the rush nobody noticed that the spark plug cap had come adrift until the team had wasted another frantic few minutes pushing the bike up and down the pits.

Then Agostinelli went out on a mission, running the bike on the ragged edge to make up time and, perhaps inevitably, high-sided it right in front of the pits. It only cost the team two places but at the half-way mark after four hours Showtime were a disappointing 23 laps off the pace, in ninth place.

The RST team had clocked up 270 faultless laps and were four laps ahead of Race Nation while Wackem were seven laps down. 12 laps further down there was a huge scrap between the Calberg CBR150 team of Jimmy Pantony, Paul Medell, Paul Linaker and Johan van der Merwe, the sister bike of Gerrit Visser junior, Andrew Liebenberg and Johan van der Merwe junior, and the Honda CBR150 of Christopher Landsberg, Brendan Erasmus and Malcolm Erasmus – all within a minute after four hours and 250 laps.

But Showtime hadn't given up and on lap 297, halfway through the fifth hour, they moved into fifth behind the leading Calberg machine of Pantony, Medell, Linaker and Van der Merwe – but still 25 laps down.

Van der Merwe crashed the Calberg bike heavily at the start of the sixth hour after a footpeg vibrated loose and it took them a long time to repair, dropping them to 11th and promoting Showtime to fourth.

DRAMA WASN'T OVER

They were still the fastest team on the circuit, gradually making up about two laps an hour, but it wasn't going to be enough and RST seemed to have the race in the bag with nine laps in hand.

But the drama wasn't over; with less than half an hour to go Tiaan Lotter, riding one of only a handful of two-strokes in the race, took a huge tumble in the Pits Esses and wound up lying on the circuit.

For the first time in the 2009 Eight Hour the safety bike came out and the field bunched up while Lotter and the Yamaha were picked up. Two laps later the green flags came out and they were racing again, with Guantario on the Showtime bike putting in an incredible final stint.

But the result was never in doubt as the RST bike came home to win by 10 laps from Gildenhuys and Venter, who never tried to race anybody – they just put in the fastest possible scheduled service around the "K" circuit, and it paid off. Third, 15 laps down, were the Wackem racing crew, nine laps ahead of Showtime.

The winners completed 538 laps at an average of 53.5sec a lap including pit stops, with a fastest lap of 49.510sec (the fastest lap of the race), set by Towers in the fifth hour.

But, for the rest, just to finish a race in which all but three bikes crashed at least once was victory enough – until next year.

RESULTS - 2009 RST 8 HOUR

1 Westman/Towers/Kennaugh/Paetzold - 538 laps
2 Gildenhuys/Venter - 528
3 Peskens/Wakefield/Sterianos - 523
4 Agostinelli/Guantario/Friedrich/McFadden – 514
5 Landsberg/Erasmus/Rudman – 504
6 Jones/Craig/Hamilton-Brown/Lane – 501
7 Storey/Hamill/Wasserfall/Craig – 499
8 Visser/Liebenberg/Van der Merwe – 499
9 Visser/Anton Blignaut/Joubert – 498
10 Van den Berg/Towers/Walker/Gibbon – 496
11 Wassung/Crouse/Di Meola/Gortmaker – 484
12 Wright/Haupt/Wilson/Van der Merwe – 484
13 Pantony/Medell/Linaker/Van der Merwe – 480
14 Swanepoel/Isaacs/Reijz – 480
15 Kessell/Burger/Rabie/Boyd – 463
16 McKenzie/Jonas/Van der Walt – 457
17 Bolding/Jones/Brown/Portlock – 455
18 Wahl/Williams/Van der Berg – 450
19 Cronje/Warden/Grobbelaar/Conte – 443
20 Van Rensburg/Hall/Haupt/Wasserfall – 440
21 Van Niekerk/Franks/Brace/Solomon – 426
22 Westman/Scheckle/Priday/Bacon – 426
23 Van Niekerk/Van der Walt/Ziade/Pienaar - 422
24 Van Zyl/Van Zyl/De Vos/De Vos – 421
25 Alexander/King/Van der Merwe/Mostert – 419
26 Kriek/Lottering/Boggon/Bowman – 378
27 Wait/Snyman/Hoskins – 332
28 Koekemoer/Lotter/Laing/Verwey – 202
29 Le Roux/Pretorius/Livings – 173