The mid-summer visit to Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia’s Atlantic Motorsport Park is over. So what’s going on in CSBK? Most years, the championships are more-or-less determined at this point, and it looks like that might be the case again this season.
In fact, one race series is already settled. In the new Ninja ZX-4RR spec series, Mack Weil has clinched the championship in the Pro class. There are only two racers in that class, and Weil has won seven of eight races so far. With only 108 points left to win in the final two CSBK weekends, second-place Dave Walker will be unable to overcome Weil’s lead in the Pro championship.
In the Amateur class of that series, note that things are a lot tighter. Adolfo Silva (longtime familiar face in the previous 300/400 twins support class racing) leads with 72 points, but Rob Lepp is barely behind him with 57 points, and JP Schroeder (another familiar face, with an amateur career going back to the Harley-Davidson XR1200 series) is third with 54 points. Let’s hope we see a push for 2025 with more racers in this series, as there’s tons of potential here.
Torin Collins to wildcard at CTMP
While we’re on the Kawasaki theme, we should also point out that Torin Collins is going to return for a second CSBK wildcard appearance, at so-called Mosport Round (at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park). He’s going to be riding for Kawasaki, on a ZX-10R that previously was ridden by Jordan Szoke. According to Kawasaki’s PR:
That bike will end up coming from Economy Lube boss Stephen Moxey’s own stable, in the form of an ex-Waznie Racing Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R last ridden by 14-time champ Jordan Szoke.
“I just knew we had to get this kid on a bike,” Moxey enthused. “Watching the way he rode on a mostly-stock, much older bike in Alberta was incredible. I’m excited to see what he can do on this one!”
The bike will be familiar to Economy Lube crew chief Scott Miller, whose Fast Company shop does engine work for Waznie Racing Ninja race bikes.
Fourteen-time CSBK champion Szoke will setup the bike and also host Collins under the Waznie Racing/Kawasaki tent at CTMP.
Interesting! For a while now, Szoke has talked about perhaps moving into more of a team management role, and indeed, it looked like he might be headed that way last summer before Trevor Dion jumped ship from Waznie Racing. Maybe Collins and Szoke will worth together again in the future? Although Ben Young is The Man To Beat in CSBK these days, Szoke’s long history in Canadian roadracing gives him brainpower that would be perhaps unrivaled as a team manager…
Pro titles almost settled
Speaking of Ben Young: The BMW-riding Scottish-Canadian racer currently has a 40-point lead on Sam Guerin in the title hunt. Guerin can certainly overtake Young if disaster strikes the leader, but even then, Guerin would not be guaranteed to clean up in the remaining races. Not only is Collins now threatening to take podiums and points, we also see Alex Dumas returning to the series with renewed vigor, and of course Szoke himself is still a threat for a win on any weekend. In other words: There’s so much competition in Pro Superbike now that it would be hard for any one racer to break away from the pack. All Young has to do at this point is race smart and stay in the points.
This is especially true as the next racers at CTMP always bring out interesting wildcard challenges. Along with Collins’ return, we would not be surprised to see other former series hotshots return. Kenny Riedmann often returns to CTMP, and we’ve even seen former 600/1000 champ Jodi Christie make a return this year—although it was in the Pro Twins series. Will he come back for Mosport as well? It sure would make things interesting for that series.
In Pro Sport Bike, we see a situation similar to the Superbike series. Sebastien Tremblay has a commanding 51-point lead over second-place John Laing now. Unless Tremblay has a lot of bad luck, it seems unlikely he would be dethroned at this point.
See you at Mosport!
The next CSBK race weekend is August 9-11 at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, in Bowmanville, Ontario. This is always the biggest race weekend of the year, with lots of other stuff going on at the track as well as the racing. If you can only get to one CSBK race, get to this one—links to tickets and other details are here.
