Canadian Superbike racer Ben Young must be feeling on top of the world right now, and Sam Guerin must either feel the same, or must be incredibly frustrated. And Alex Dumas? Things didn’t go his way over the weekend, although it could have been a lot worse…
At the Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (Mosport) round of the 2023 CSBK championship, BMW-mounted Young was three-for-three over the weekend, winning Saturday’s race and both Sunday’s races. Meanwhile, Sam Guerin (also on a BMW) was right behind him, earning second in all three races. And, third in all three races? Alex Dumas!
That means Suzuki-mounted Dumas, who went into the weekend with a massive lead after Ben Young’s bad luck in the first two rounds, is now only three points ahead as the season-ending Shannonville tripleheader looms on the schedule. He’s now pressured by not just Young, but if the math worked out and Dumas’ luck didn’t work out, even Sam Guerin could conceivably get past him in the standings. He’s 43 points back, but a lot can change over a tripleheader weekend!
Meanwhile, Tomas Casas (aboard a Yamaha) is 74 points back, unlikely to take much from Dumas in the overall standings, but certainly able to entangle him in a mid-race battle that stops him from getting to the front. Same for Jordan Szoke (Kawasaki), who’s 88 points back. The Mosport weekend didn’t go well for Szoke, but he still put in some incredible racing after mechanical issues left him starting at back of the grid in Race 1, battling all the way up to fifth in that race.
Pro Sport Bike
Down in the trenches of the Pro Sport Bike series, there was a make-up race on Friday, for the lost race at Shubenacadie in July. John Laing charged to the front of that rainy race, and Connor Campbell was second, Alex Michel third.
On Saturday, Elliot Vieira took his Ducati Panigale V2 to the win in the formerly-a-600 class, with Matthew Simpson second, David MacKay third. And on Sunday, Sebastien Tremblay was first, Elliot Vierira second, David MacKay third again.
While not perhaps gaining the acclaim of Pro Superbike, the Sport Bike series continues to have big see-saws and excellent racing. However, David MacKay has been steady enough to build up a 16-point lead overall, and if he can hold it together at Shannonville in September, he’ll have a well-earned championship.
Pro Twins
This class runs on-track at the same time as Pro Sport Bike. This class was DNS in Friday’s make-up race for Shubie, and only Tomas Casas took to the track in Pro Twins races on Saturday and Sunday, aboard his Yamaha 700 sportbike, the first such race machine in Canada. He finished towards the back of the pack, which is no surprise considering he was riding a 700 twin amongst 600 fours, and it was his first weekend of racing the bike. But expect this class to become more interesting in the years to come as he and his counterparts challenge each other and mix things up for the Sport Bike class as well.
Amateur classes
Andrew Cooney won the first Amateur Superbike race (aboard his CBR600, no less!), but was a DNS in Race 2, which went to Matt Vanderhorst. Cooney also prevailed in Race 1 in Amateur Sport Bike; Mavrick Cyr took Race 2 in that series. Cyr leads both Amateur Superbike and Amateur Sport Bike on his Triumph.
And in the Lightweight Sport Bike classes, Cameron Walker and Vincent Wilson went 1-2 in Saturday and Sunday’s Pro-Am races (Vincent Lalande third in Race 1, Gary McKinnon third in Race 2). This continues, like the Pro Sport Bike series, to be very closely-fought.
In Amateur Lightweight Sport Bike, Vincent Wilson won both Saturday and Sunday’s races. So the question is: Will he settle into life as a Pro-Am competitor in the 400 series, or is he going to push on to a 600?
Inasmuch as I love racing, Saturday wore me out waiting for red flags to clear. I’ve been to VRRA, WSBK, Moto America and follow Moto GP. Red flags don’t take an hour to clear in any of these series but tends to be the norm in CSBK. It’s causing me to lose interest in attending. And this just wasn’t this year, this has been the case for the last 20 years that I’ve attended. I didn’t even bother going on Sunday, as a result. I’m sure I’m not the only one to be frustrated. Maybe the group running the series should work on streamlining the process to keep the series moving.
The hay bales at the side of the track were literally on fire…and the red flag lasted less than 45 minutes. What exactly did you expect them to clear faster than that?
By my watch, it was an hour. Firstly, I get that there was a hale bale on fire yet it should in no way have taken that long to extinguish. They must have sent 7 vehicles to the scene as I watched one after another pass by while I waited at turn 2. In addition, that still didn’t work and the next race was red flagged as the bale caught fire again. Why didn’t they remove the hale bale in the first place? Sorry but it looked very amateurish. Please note, I’ve had to sit through constant red flags at CSBK be it at Mosport or Shannonville and they all seem to take the same amount of time to clear. I just believe this is an unreasonable amount of time especially in light of having, what looked to be, the entire safety crew on site.
Re: Pro Twins – 3 entries for the weekend and only one finisher on Sunday ?