One of the greatest racing series ever, in my opinion, was Boxercup – actually, I haven’t been everywhere and everywhen, so maybe there were others, but it was certainly among the greats.
By Donovan Fourie
The BMW Boxercup series took place in the early 2000s until BMW stopped making the bikes a few years later. It was great – BMW sold everyone a bike whereupon it was left completely standard; no engine mods, no chassis mods and perhaps an aftermarket body kit. It was so strict that a rider was disqualified for taking his indicator bracket off – standard means standard.
Part of the fun was the cost-saving. The bike itself wasn’t cheap but there was no messing around with chains, gearing, suspension setup or, importantly, changing tyres. The joke was that you got your bike ready at the beginning of the season. Three months in (if you’re feeling energetic) you might maybe wash it. Six months in, you might change the tyres at last, and then leave the bike as is until the end of the season.
Repeat the following year.
Even tyre warmers were not allowed, so before each session and race, you’d see a line of Boxercup bikes using the earth’s natural tyre warmer – the sun.
Not spending money and not having to work on your bike was great but the other grand benefit was that the bikes were so easy to ride that they didn’t require a strict gym regiment in order to complete a ten-lap race. It was truly racing for lazy people.
And this sort of lazy racing attracted the same sort of person; usually pretty well off and usually good fun.
The racing was part of ‘the good weekend’. The rest was hanging out with the other racers.
The Kawasaki ZX-10R Cup is filling that sort of gap quite nicely, attracting the more casual racer despite some of the best riders in the country taking part. It’s South Africa’s most successful motorcycle tar racing series and it damn well deserves its laurels.
Although, it isn’t for everyone. Firstly, the minimum age is 35, so no laaities. Also, it does rather require a fair chunk of cash thrown into it, especially for tyres and, should the bike go horizontal at speed, a fair old spares budget. And, unless you can dash up a flight of stairs without hyperventilating, a ten-lap race is going to be hard work.
Step forward the Suzuki 8R Cup, or whatever name it will choose for itself. It’s more like the Boxercup Class than anything we’ve seen since…. well, the Boxer Cup Class.
For fewer than 200,000 South African Rands you have a full-blown race bike. Tyres will last a full race day, maybe even a full race weekend. Possibly two or more. The bike is light and made out of tough stuff, so a spill won’t lead to ruin. And, most importantly to this fantastically lazy journalist, no need to go to the gym because riding these bikes is a doddle.
Now all I have to do is figure out how to get everyone else to add 100 kg to their bikes and I’m a sure champ!
We really hope that this class happens.
We hope that the authorities in racing think long and hard about how the benefits outweigh all of the negatives that they were mentioning at the meeting we had at Redstar.
We hope that they see the benefits of a cost effective race series.
We hope that they see that attracting young, new riders and racers to our sport.
The dealers benefit with bike sales and parts.
And then there’s the benefit of learning from the established, faster riders…
To us, it all makes good sense.
The racers love it. 12 riders have already signed up and paid deposits. Let’s get behind it and give it a push!
Interested?
Veteran Race organiser and racer Clinton Pienaar is the man driving it all.
Drop him a WhatsApp 064940 2733
