Ben Young is once again CSBK’s Pro Superbike champion, as he passed rival Alex Dumas in the standings over the Shannonville triple-header weekend, and hung for the victory despite hard pressure. It is Young’s second championship in a row, and puts some of the peanut gallery’s comments to bed, after they’d picked away at his ’22 title. No one can doubt that he’s championship material now!
Young won the weekend’s first Pro Superbike race on Friday when Dumas crashed his Suzuki out, and that put Young in the series lead aboard his BMW (Jordan Szoke was second on his Kawasaki, and Trevor Dion—Szoke’s teammate in the last race—took his new Ducati to third).
Dumas still had a mathematical chance at the title, but Young repeated his win in Race Two on Saturday, getting past Dumas on the last lap and leaving him with second place, Dion once again taking third. That clinched the series for Young, but Dumas did not give up.
In Sunday’s Race 3, Dumas led from the first lap, taking the win and setting the stage for another showdown with Young once the 2024 season starts. Young finished second, and once again, Dion finished third.
At season’s end, Young won the title, followed by Dumas, then Sam Guerin. Szoke was in fourth, after finishing no higher than second all year, a big shift from his usual fortunes but probably unsurprising considering his ongoing health struggles. Fifth was Tomas Casas, who might have performed a bit better had he actually been able to race at Shannonville—he crashed in qualifying on Saturday and was out for the triple-header.
As we look forward to the 2024 campaign, we expect a thrilling season of racing courtesy of those five contestants, as long as everyone can stay healthy.
Pro Sport Bike
There were only two races in the 600 series on the weekend, and David Mackay ended up the season champ, followed by Matt Simpson, after they dueled all season. Sebastien Tremblay was third overall, Elliot Vieira fourth, and John Laing fifth.
Tremblay earned that third overall on the strength of two wins at the Shannonville closer. Elliot Vieira was second in Race 1, then David Mackay; in Race 2, it was Matt Simpson second and Vieira third. As it turned out, despite the flash and dash of the 600 series, it came down to simple, consistent points earning when all was said and done. There is also lots of hope in this series next year with guys like Mackay, Vieira, Tremblay and Simpson all battling, especially with the Pro Twins class now on-grid at the same time. Speaking of which, Andrew Van Winkle won both the Pro Twins races at Shannonville. He scored points in every race, but the competition was light this year. Only one other Twins bike raced him in Round 5.
Other series
Amateur Superbike’s title went to Mavrick Cyr, followed by Tyler Brewer, then Andrew Cooney. Cyr also won Amateur Sport Bike, with Bryce DeBoer second in the standings, then Cooney again in third.
Amateur Lightweight Sportbike saw Vincent Lalande win, with Vincent Wilson in second and Jack Beaudry in third. Lightweight Pro-Am saw Stacey Nesbitt champion of the Pro category, followed by Ryan Vanderputten and then Jacob Black (congrats, to CMG’s former big boss!). In the Amateur category, Wilson was first overall, then Lalande, and Beaudry once more in third.
See full points run-downs for all series at CSBK.ca here.
