This weekend’s final in the Parts Canada Superbike Championship will see Kawasaki’s Jordan Szoke facing off against Suzuki-mounted Clint McBain. Szoke, who calls Brantford, Ont., home, has a strong 42-point lead over the Cochrane, Alberta-based McBain, with 56 points up for grabs between qualifying and racing.
McBain hasn’t given up; he and Szoke have split all the victories so far this season, and McBain was forced to miss the first round from an injury suffered in pre-season testing.
Szoke will be hard to beat, however. He badly wants a third-straight Superbike title, which would be his fifth national championship in the past 11 years. Szoke has also matured as a rider, and is willing to settle back and take a position for points rather than charge for the lead, which is McBain’s only chance.
There are certainly other contenders for the last-race win, as Kevin Lacombe on the Fast Company Yamaha is third overall in the series (albeit still recovering from a broken wrist), while Blackfoot Suzuki team-mates Francis Martin and Chris Peris are in a tight battle for fourth.
And you can’t count out Szoke’s team-mate Brett McCormick, who just turned 17 this month. The kid from Saskatoon has had a rough season with luck and injuries in his second year as a Pro rider, but in the last race at Shubenacadie, N.S., he set pole position and took a fourth and a second in the double-header.
Six other classes will also be racing in the Sunday, August 31 finals with titles yet to settled in Canadian Thunder, Armour Bodies Amateur 600 Sport Bike, and Suzuki SV650 National Cup classes. Our best guesses? Italy’s Valter Bartolini in Thunder on his NCR Ducati with a good lead over his team-mate Andrew Nelson, from Kars, Ont., 16-year-old Keene, Ont., resident Jodi Christie in Amateur 600, and it’s a card toss in SV650, where recent New Zealand arrival John Jarvie has a two-point lead over yet another fast teen, 15-year-old Cody Matechuk — who’s from Alberta and happens to be Clint McBain’s stepson, so you could say he comes by it honestly.
No plans …. think I may attend for the first time, in a while.