The Magnificent 7 – Seller wraps up another SA title
by Greg Maloney | Pics by Jeff Latham Photography
With only a second-place needed in just one of the two heats, it wasn’t going to be any risk-taking for the Final Round of the NGK SASBK Championship for our very own Evel Knievel, Clint Seller.
Seller qualified 2nd so seemed to be on the right track in terms of the numbers game. With David McFlash McFadden on Pole, Seller literally had to just follow his Capetonian rival home to the flag. However, no one expected to see newly crowned 600 Supersport champ Ricardo Otto alongside Seller and McFadden on the front row, but the home town hero was hauling on his Otto Racing R6. And of course, you can never take the big man Garrick Vlok out of the equation.
Race one saw McFadden put on a riding lesson to all in how to win at Aldo Scribante with a 1:01 from a standing start and then 9 back to back 60 sec flat laps to take an easy win over Seller, who was by the looks of things being pushed by Vlok, buy-in his Championship winning post-race interview, Seller informed all that even a small amount of damage to his exhaust system he still had the measure of Vlok at all times. Vlok too confirmed this saying his 8-year-old R1 was just no match for the now 7 Time SA SBK Champion.
Only two other incidents marked a pretty much-expected finishing list and those were a big front end crash for Lights by Linea Yamaha 600 rider, Brett Roberts and a big crash at the hairpin by Bridgestone Superbike combatant Ian Thomas. Both riders were checked out and unfortunately not able to get their bikes fixed in time for Race 2.
The 600s were won out by Otto over teammate to Seller, Dino Iozzo.
Race 2 was pretty much almost a copy of race 1 and McFadden despite one lap behind the Champ, once again blitzed in one minute flat lap times. Seller resumed his playing with Vlok up until lap 3 when the biggest rider in SA, abord his DCCS Core Mining R1 crossed the line to start the lap in a ball of flames, as Vloks 8 year old cried no more and burst into flames as he crossed the line. It was pretty spectacular to watch the 6ft 5 rider dismount his R1 just past the pit exit on the edge of the grass at about 100km/h and seemingly just jog alongside it unphased. And to think Mark Vlok had just said at the beginning of the day that he thought it might be time for new machinery.
600s were a lot closer than Race 1 with Dino Iozzo timing his late move to perfection and give Seller Racing King Price Xtreme another victory on the day, beating Otto to the line. And to add to such an epic day Sfiso Themba added to the #1 finishes for the team with his first win in the Bridgestone Superbike class.
2020 has been a very difficult year for all and we hope that plans discussed over the weekend between SA SBK management come into fruition and that 2021 will bring a resurgence to one of the most exciting Motorcycle Championships in the World.
Stay tuned here for breaking news and updates on these plans and more from our MRW team who as you have seen, have a few inner sanctums where only we can get into to bring you stories as they unfold.