Four races into the 2023 CSBK season, and Alex Dumas has continued to build his lead while bad luck and increased competition make it harder for other challengers.
Heading into Grand Bend, Dumas had won both races at the Shannonville opener, but bad luck had kept Ben Young from really pushing him in the second show-down. Grand Bend would be Young’s chance to take back some points from Dumas—but it didn’t work out that way.
Young did take the first win at Grand Bend in wet conditions, with Dumas second and Samuel Guerin third. When the weather jumbled up Sunday’s Race 2 again, with mixed conditions, Young crashed his wet-weather bike in the warmup and had to take his dry-weather bike out after getting back aboard and heading to the pits. He ended the race in dead last place, although he did bag five points, making the effort potentially worth it. Dumas won that race, extending his lead.
Young wasn’t the only elite rider who had issues with the weather. Tomas Casas was only a peg ahead of him, in 10th spot. Trevor Daley also crashed out, but managed to remount his machine and cut through traffic to fourth in the race, which lands him only a point out of third overall, and tightens Suzuki’s grip on the Constructors Championship (with Casas also riding a GSXR-1000 this season).
The weather was a boon for local hero Chris Pletsch, who took his SOAR experience at Grand Bend and bagged a second overall in Race 2, followed by Trevor Dion, who barely beat Daley out for the podium.
What about Jordan Szoke? The star Kawasaki rider managed fourth in Race 1, but he also had a DNF in Race 2—not due to weather, but mechanical failure. Szoke said it was his first-ever mechanical DNF. It’s a tough blow, as he’s now sitting in seventh overall, 75 points back of the lead with two DNFs in as many weekends. No doubt he will pick up speed as the summer progresses, though, and there are still seven races to go.
But as for now: Dumas leads the Pro Superbike standings, with 106 points. Young is second, with 70 points. Sam Guerin is third overall, with 51 points.
Pro Sport Bike
David MacKay doubled up at Grand Bend, winning both races, and Sebastian Tremblay was second in both Pro Sport Bike duels. Third went to Matthew Simpson in Race 1 and Elliot Vieira in Race 2. It was tough luck for Simpson to miss out on those Race 2 points, as he’s now 12 back of MacKay for second overall in the Pro Sport Bike hunt. Brad Macrae, in third overall, had a bummer of a weekend with a last place in Race 1, bagging fifth in Race 2. He’s now 39 points down in the chase for the title.
In the Twins class, which runs concurrently with Pro Sport Bike, Jeff Williams won both races with lap times that would roughly equal the backmarkers of the 600 series.
Amateur Superbike/Sport Bike
Maverick Cyr won the amateur 600 and 1000 series races aboard his Triumph 675. This was Cyr’s second weekend sweeping the Amateur Sport Bike and Superbike races. Impressive, although most of the competition in the Superbike race was running 600-class equipment. Will he be able to repeat this feat at the challenging Shubenacadie track next month? Stay tuned!
Lightweight Sport Bike
In Amateur Lightweight Sport Bike, Vincent Wilson, Vincent Lalande and Jack Beaudry finished 1-2-3 in both races, in that order—and that’s how they sit in the standings. In the Pro-Am race, Lalande won the first race, followed by Ryan Vanderputten and Stacey Nesbitt. Vanderputten won Race 2, followed by Nesbitt, then Lalande.
Whoever wrote this needs to go back to their desk and pull their head out of their a**
There is an error in your story as Tomas Casas is not on a Suzuki GSXR