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Collin Matiza Sports Editor
MOTORCYCLE road racing is set to grow in Zimbabwe after a breakfast cereal manufacturing company Bokomo Weet-Bix pledged to continue supporting this exciting sport this year.
In fact, Bokomo Weet-Bix are coming back, for the second year running, as the official sponsors of the Megelli Championship series whose first race meeting was recently held at the home of motorsport in Zimbabwe — Donnybrook Raceway in Harare — during first round of the National Motor Racing Championships.
This last race meeting provided thrills and spills for the spectators as Bokomo Weet-Bix were back again this year with their much-needed support for the Megelli 250 motorcycle series.
This year, the national motorcycle series is back after a 10-year absence and this provided lots of action for the spectators during the opening round of the Bokomo Weet-Bix series where four riders fought it out for the lead.
A smaller grid of 250cc Megellis did not detract from the excellent racing at the front of both scratch races, as a quartet of riders swopped positions around the track.
Graham Hill led for most of the race but had to fight off the likes of veteran rider Phil Archenoul, Gavin Randall and Ian Gutherless.
But after a ding-dong battle, Hill made it to the finish line first, grabbing his first ever national win.
The second race was much the same as the first but Randall and Archenoul tried desperately to take Hill on several occasions but Hill kept fighting back and went on to take the win ahead of Archenoul, Randall, Gutherless and Carl Olsen.
Olsen had improved in leaps and bounds and was in the front for a few laps.
Former South Africa’s national superbikes champion Shaun Whyte was also involved in this pack, while Gutherless and Olsen had their own dice ahead of rookie Warwick Rowley.
Bulawayo’s Dave Mouatt had to contend with Archenoul, while the ever-improving Tiffany Fisher brought up the rear.
Tiffany turned the tables on the men in the handicap race though, taking an easy victory ahead of Rowley and Randall, capping a very good day for the ladies at Donnybrook.
Meanwhile, one of the organisers of the Megelli Championship, Shaun Whyte, said yesterday that this year’s competition will be bigger and better after Bokomo Weet-Bix committed themselves to supporting it for the second year running this season.
“It is really great to see motorcycle national racing back in Zimbabwe. We hope it will keep growing and a special thank you to Bokomo Weet-Bix for their support. We would like to assure them that their sponsorship would be put to good use,” Whyte said.
The next round of the series will see it moving to Bulawayo on March 29.
Whyte is also the chairman of the Bogwheelers Club, who run the motorcycling sport of motocross in Zimbabwe. He took over the hot seat from Gary Grainger at the beginning of the year and he also hopes to make the sport grow from strength to strength just like the Bokomo Weet-Bix Megelli Championship.
Shaun Whyte is the younger brother of two-time African motor rallying champion Jamie Whyte, who has now retired from the sport.
Jamie Whyte won back-to-back African motor rally titles in 2009 and 2010 assisted by his navigator Archenoul who has also retired from the sport and is now into motorcycling where he is competing in this year’s Bokomo Weet-Bix Megelli Championship series as well as in drag racing whose first race of the year will be held at Donnybrook on April 6.
Online Reporter