The first round of the 2026 Bridgestone Canadian Superbike Championship season is finally on the horizon, with action getting underway at historic Shannonville Motorsport Park this upcoming weekend, May 15-17.
Every new season brings changes to the pro grids, but the 2026 opener will look even more different than usual when Friday practice kicks off at the venue near Kingston, Ontario.
Retirements and absentees will be replaced by a number of young talents - some new, some returning - who are hungry to fill the void this season, and Shannonville’s fast ten-turn, 2.47 km layout will offer plenty of opportunity for the chasing packs.
However, a few significant names at the top of the order remain the same, with a pair of recent champions looking to kickstart the campaign with two massive victories at the doubleheader weekend.
Young, Szoke renew rivalry in GP Bikes Pro Superbike
The feature GP Bikes Pro Superbike class will see it’s reigning #1 back on track this weekend, as Ben Young defends his fifth career Canada Cup but first as a Honda rider.
Having won four titles for BMW, Young made the bold switch to Honda in 2025 and retained his crown in dramatic fashion, winning the CTMP finale last season in a three-way championship shootout over Alex Dumas and Sam Guerin.
The Van Dolder’s Home Team Honda rider will now get some reprieve with both Dumas and Guerin gone - the former returning south to MotoAmerica, while the latter retired following his heartbreaking crash at the finale last season - but that doesn’t mean things will be easy for Young at the season opener.
His debut weekend on the Honda last season was a difficult one by his lofty standards, finishing third and second at Shannonville but battling some growing pains as he adjusted to the CBR1000RR-R.
That left him dead even entering round two with a familiar rival in Jordan Szoke, who is back for a 26th season in 2026. The most accomplished rider in CSBK history, Szoke was once the dominant champion who saw Young as the thorn in his side, but now will try to reverse that script as he enters Shannonville as the closest challenger for what would be his record-extending 15th Canada Cup.
Szoke has won seven times at Shannonville, just once more than Young, but the Canadian Kawasaki Motors rider has more experience than anybody to draw from in what could be a cool and damp weekend.
The bigger story is who will be chasing the pair, as the absence of Dumas and Guerin has opened up a massive opportunity for the rest of the feature class.
Leading the charge is 2025 breakout star David MacKay, the most consistent “best of the rest” rider last season who seems poised to take the next step in 2026.
The ODH/Snow City Cycle Honda rider finished inside the top-six in seven of his nine races last season, including a pair of fourth-place finishes at the opener in Shannonville, as he matched his fifth-overall finish in the championship from his rookie year.
The 2023 Supersport champion has yet to step on a Superbike podium but has a golden opportunity to do so many times this season, playing a pivotal role for Honda as he and Young chase the brand’s first ever Constructors Championship.
MacKay won’t be without his own challengers, however, headlined by a pair of new Kawasaki teammates in Connor Campbell and Alex Michel.
Campbell’s horrid injury luck continued in 2025 as he missed the final five races, ending what was a promising start with a pair of top-seven finishes at Shannonville and Shubenacadie, but he still put his ZX-10R Ninja to use in the season finale as he offered Michel a wildcard appearance aboard it.
The young Quebecois rider smashed the opportunity, finishing sixth and fifth at CTMP, and he will now join Campbell full-time aboard his own Canadian Kawasaki Motors superbike.
Another former Supersport frontrunner will make the step up to Superbike in 2026, as last year’s championship runner-up in middleweight Andrew Van Winkle finds himself on a Mountainview Motorsports Honda this season.
The B.C. teenager will have a steep learning curve in the feature class but has aced every step of his CSBK career thus far, though round one in Shannonville was a difficult weekend for him last year in Supersport as he missed the podium both times.
Rounding out the midfield is Zoltan Frast, who leads BMW’s charge in 2026 aboard his Clare’s Cycle S1000RR. The former Supersport podium-finisher only raced four times in 2025, but finished inside the top-eight on each occasion including a career-best sixth in the CTMP finale, making him an underrated choice to join the podium battle this season.
Tremblay looks to capitalize on Collins’ absence
As for the newly-rebranded OPP Racing Pro Supersport class, it will more than likely be a vacated crown in 2026 as reigning champion Torin Collins juggles double-duty with the MotoAmerica season - meaning he will be absent for round one at Shannonville as he heads south to Barber.
His unfortunate departure, combined with the promotion of Van Winkle to Superbike, opens the door for a major bounce-back season for Sebastien Tremblay, one of the most accomplished riders in middleweight history who largely had a 2025 to forget.
Tremblay still posed a significant challenge for Collins and Van Winkle last season, winning the last race of the year and scoring six podiums to finish third in the championship, but it never looked like the proper title defence many were expecting from the 2024 champion.
Now rejuvenated aboard his Turcotte Performance Suzuki, Tremblay enters Shannonville as the betting favourite for both a season-opening victory and the 2026 crown, but he won’t be without his own rivals when round one gets underway.
Tops amongst them is a pair of race winners in Elliot Vieira and Matt Simpson, the former still unconfirmed aboard his GP Bikes Ducati but would be an automatic threat if he is on-track after finishing top-six in every single race last season.
Simpson, meanwhile, will be present for round one aboard his Evans Racing Suzuki and is almost a guaranteed frontrunner after battling Collins for the lead at Shannonville last season, ultimately crashing out but proving to be one of his toughest tests of the entire campaign.
Another young rider swapping machinery in 2026 is runaway rookie of the year Laurent Laliberte-Girard, who joins Moto Falardeau Kawasaki after earning a pair of podiums last season for Yamaha, finishing sixth in the overall championship.
He will be looking to take the next step for Kawasaki this season as will be former amateur frontrunner Mackenzie Weil, who already carved out a career-best season for Snow City Cycle Kawasaki in 2025 with a midseason run of five top-ten finishes in a row.
Hoping to put a disastrous 2025 behind him will be Brad Macrae, a former race winner in the class and genuine threat who will be flying under the radar entering round one.
The local favourite pioneered the Yamaha YZF-R9 at CTMP last season but was fairly anonymous in 12th and tenth, battling a number of issues with the new machine. Now having had a full offseason to sort out the kinks, Macrae is talented enough to vault right back to the top of the timesheets at Shannonville if he can untap the potential of the R9.
Rounding out the group will be a trio of graduating rookies in Cole Alexander, Zaim Laflamme, and Nicolas Audet, all stepping up from the amateur ranks after strong years in 2025.
Alexander will headline the group as the double-champion in both Superbike and Supersport, having taken three out of four victories at Shannonville last season for Suzuki, but Laflamme was no slouch with a win and two runner-up results. Audet had less success at last year’s opener, but can’t be discounted after a run of five consecutive podiums to end the year in Amateur Supersport.
The wide-open Supersport ranks will also present the most unpredictable Constructors Championship fight yet, with Tremblay and Simpson leading the charge for reigning champions Suzuki but with Kawasaki, Yamaha, and Ducati all squarely in the mix.
The weekend will kick off with official practice and qualifying on Friday at Shannonville Motorsport Park, just an hour west of Kingston, Ontario, before racing gets underway May 16-17.
