COMPETITORS at the annual Master of Mac Park series battled changing weather conditions on the weekend, with intermittent rain interrupting what was an exciting meeting.
The weather did not affect William Strugnell’s ability to push his new 1000cc Suzuki around the McNamara Park circuit, as he claimed the coveted Master of Mac Park solo title in dominant fashion.
Strugnell was the pace-setter all weekend, but he did not have it all his own way.
While he won the first two legs of the superbike class on Saturday, John Hunt took the challenge up to him in the third leg.
Hunt claimed that win by close to seven seconds aboard his 1000cc Kawasaki, then backed that up with another solid effort for the win in leg four.
However, when it came to the feature race it was all Strugnell, as he skipped out to a handy lead and claimed the honours by a healthy 10 seconds.
The end result saw Hunt and Strugnell tied for the weekend’s honours for round three of the SA Superbike Championships, both finishing with 90 points.
Strugnell now leads that series with a whopping 240 points, 87 clear of Darren Trotter.
Trotter showed consistent form, with four third places across the weekend.
He also managed third place in the Master of Mac Park feature race.
The sidecar feature went as expected, with Stephen and David Jones a cut above the rest.
The Jones boys were chasing their fifth Master of Mac Park title as a duo and did so with relative ease.
They claimed the win by 20 seconds, with Richard and Scott Goodale home in second, followed by Jaysen and Adam Hammond.
For the juniors, Declan Carberry claimed the SA round with four victories, ahead of Cooper Rowntree and Ryder Gilbert, then continued that in the feature race for a comfortable 30-second win, again with Rowntree and Gilbert in second and third respectively.
The final feature race saw a tightly-contested Master of Mac Park consolation final.
Dylan Gilbert eventually opened a five-second gap on his rivals to greet the chequered flag first on a 600cc Yamaha, with Simon Sweeney second on the same type of machine.
Sweeney had to fight hard to hold off Suzuki 600cc rider Libero Belletti, who was less than half a second behind.
For the overall SA championships, Carberry leads the juniors with a total of 275 points.
In the limited class Roger Ireland returned a strong points haul, with four wins to lead the series with 235 points, with Gareth Deacon in second place and Carberry rounds out the top three.
Graeme Nolan claimed the round honours in the naked bike class, now with a handy 44-point lead over Ireland.
Graham Snaith managed three wins and a second place to claim the round in the pre-modern category, before a nasty fall in the Master of Mac Park series saw him head off to hospital.
The SA supersport category was somewhat closer, with Alex Phillip-Hughes claiming the round honours.
He leads the series with 163 points, just 10 clear of nearest rival Ben Liebig, with Eric Aria rounding out the top three with 138.
