Young paces FP2 as gap tightens at Shannonville

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Category: CSBK News

Published on Saturday, May 18, 2024 12:16 EDT

Written by Cam Bickle

Ben Young continued to top the timesheets at the 2024 Bridgestone Canadian Superbike Championship opener on Saturday, though by a much slimmer margin as the pace tightened in FP2 at Shannonville Motorsport Park, presented by the Fallen Rider Support Team sponsored by Pace Law.

Young blitzed the GP Bikes Pro Superbike field on Friday to earn BS Battery Pole Position for both of this weekend’s races, setting a time over a second clear of rival Jordan Szoke in second, but the gap dropped considerably to begin day two of the season.

It was still Young who led for virtually the entire 40-minute practice session, but this time the Van Dolder’s Home Team BMW rider was followed – at times literally – by Sam Guerin, who ramped up his pace ahead of race one Saturday afternoon.

Both he and Young quickly dipped into the 1:05 mark in the first ten minutes, and Guerin managed to improve his own best time just as Young did in front of him, holding the deficit at a steady 0.4 seconds for most of the session.

Young would finally extend his advantage in the last stint as he posted a time of 1:05.056, opening up a gap of 0.765 to Guerin, but a margin that was still much smaller than the full second he enjoyed on Friday.

Complicating things was that Guerin was not the only one to trim that margin, as fellow rivals Szoke and Trevor Dion also tightened up the gap at the front. Dion, who qualified fourth aboard his Economy Lube Ducati, made the bigger jump as he wound up just 0.862 seconds off the top of the timesheets and only narrowly behind Guerin.

As for Szoke, the Canadian Kawasaki Motors rider gradually chipped away at his times to lower his mark to 1:05.962, the last in the 1:05 range and only 0.906 seconds off Young – the first time all weekend that the four title contenders have been covered by less than a second.

The final moments saw Sebastien Tremblay jump up to round out the top five, putting his Turcotte Performance Suzuki a more distant 2.114 seconds off the lead time and over a full second behind the lead quartet.

Young enjoyed a similar advantage in the morning Economy Lube Pro Sport Bike practice session, putting his Scot-Build Suzuki at the front ahead of rookie Andrew Cooney, who leapfrogged Tremblay to go second-fastest aboard his Two Wheel Motorsport Suzuki. 

Tremblay would settle for the third best time of the morning and just over a second behind Young, while local rider Sean Latta put in an excellent lap of his own aboard his Latta Racing machine to lock out the top four spots for Suzuki entering race one. 

Full results from the morning sessions, as well as the schedule for all of the weekend’s racing, can be found on the series’ official website at CSBK.ca.