Szoke in Laguna Seca race

By
Larry Tate
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sm_szoke.jpg

Jordan Szoke
Rob MacLennan

Jordan Szoke, who’s just won his fifth (and third successive) Canadian Superbike crown, is off to Laguna Seca this weekend to race in the final AMA national of the season. His ride? An “unrestricted” (compared to Canada) factory Monster Energy-sponsored Kawasaki ZX-10R superbike.

He’ll be filling in for Roger Hayden, youngest of the racing Hayden brothers, who was hurt at the last race and isn’t able to ride.

Szoke is no stranger to AMA competition, having spent most of two seasons on a private Suzuki before returning to Canada and joining Kawasaki. “I’ve raced AMA events before, but this opportunity is special since I’m under the factory tent,” said Szoke. ”I’m really excited and I hope that I can make Kawasaki proud.”

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1 COMMENT

  1. I really expected Peris to clean up in at least one class in Canada. Given Szoke’s superior bike and his experience with traction control 😉 and they really have similar experience at Laguna he should have been farther up than Peris.

  2. Hey Rob, Jordan has raced AMA every year in recent history including this one (Barber), is coming up on the tender age of 30 and has been running liter bikes for a few years now. Chris is 22, this was his first full year on the big bikes and his first time ever on a big bike at Laguna. I suspect Jordan will keep performing well for a few years yet but to say that Chris has peaked might be a bit much… . Matured, defintely. Peaked, I don’t think so. Nice pic by the way.

  3. Meceman, given that Peris has raced fairly recently in AMA and it has been years for Szoke, I would say that Szoke has some room for improve. Peris? He may have peaked.

  4. Hmmm…. Szoke was on a full on US factory superbike, Peris was on a true privateer superstock bike from a small shop out of Tucson (Go ESP!!!!) Try as he might, Szoke tried to pull away from Peris in the race and could not, Peris got Szoke twice on the last lap and Szoke had to use a barge pass in turn 11 to get across the line by a couple of bike lengths. Hard to say who really deserves the factory ride…or is it. Good race to watch though.

  5. Now Szoke is up to 12th. Looks like the seat time is doing him good.

    Easy to predict a top 10 for him on Sunday. Will this lead to a US ride? But on what? What’s going to happen to AMA Superbike next year?

    Stay tuned, folks.

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