The Canadian Superbike Championship was given a slight glimpse into the weekend pace on Thursday, as a number of top riders in the Pro Superbike feature class got in some early track time at the Riders Choice trackday at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.
While no official times were recorded during Thursday’s private sessions, championship leader Alex Dumas appeared to once again be the man out front, posting a manually scored time of 1:22.97.
That time is still over two seconds clear of the lap record and 1.372 off the pole-position time in 2019, though it notably would have beat the pole time from a year ago – a good indication of how fast the pace could be this weekend.
The Liqui Moly MPG FAST Riding School Suzuki teenager benefitted from a handful of clean laps in what was a crowded group of more than 40 riders, with temperatures in the upper 30’s and new asphalt at the circuit also effecting the pace out front.
Current championship runner-up Ben Young struggled to post a clean lap early in the day aboard his Van Dolder’s Home Team BMW, but the 2019 title winner was able to string some clean laps together late in the afternoon and post an unofficial time of 1:23.32, just slightly between rivals Dumas and Jordan Szoke.
Szoke wrapped up the unofficial top-three, manually scoring a time of 1:23.58 for the Canada General Warranty Kawasaki team despite sitting out the final session, with just 0.61 seconds separating the trio of championship rivals.
Fellow Kawasaki rider Sebastian Tremblay also looked strong as he continued to test a ZX-10R Ninja superbike in preparation for this weekend, though it remains to be seen whether Tremblay’s podium potential will take a backseat to his quest for a Liqui Moly Pro Sport Bike championship, where he leads the standings aboard a 600cc machine.
Another top rider to take part in Thursday’s action was Royal Distributing BMW veteran Michael Leon, who will be looking for some redemption at CTMP after his podium charge was derailed by changing conditions a year ago.
One of the most anticipated names to join this weekend’s action was Steven Nickerson, as the SOAR regional champion was set to make his national return aboard a brand new Dewildt Powersports Honda CBR1000RR.
However, a high-speed crash earlier this week has left Nickerson’s status for the weekend in some doubt, as he was only able to complete a few flying laps on Thursday amidst numerous injuries and ailments.
Should Nickerson be unfit to go this weekend, Honda’s point-scoring hopes may shift to newcomer Chris Pletsch, who has been a SOAR regional standout alongside Nickerson and was amongst the names to take part on Thursday.
While many feature class riders did use the extra track time, a few will instead kick off their weekend when the official CSBK sessions begin on Friday, including podium contenders Tomas Casas (Parts Canada Yamaha) and Trevor Daley (OneSpeed Suzuki), amongst others.
Friday’s official action will begin with practice sessions at 9 a.m. EST, before the Yuasa Batteries Qualifying event – and the return of the Dunlop “Q” tires – begins at roughly 2:45 p.m. EST ahead of the weekend tripleheader.
The full weekend schedule can be found online at the series’ official website at www.csbk.ca.
