Tremblay outlasts Cyr for Sport Bike pole at Shannonville

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Category: CSBK News

Published on Friday, August 30, 2024 14:38 EDT

Written by Cam Bickle

Sebastien Tremblay will start his first ever weekend with the #1 from P1 at Shannonville Motorsport Park, as the Economy Lube Pro Sport Bike champion fended off Mavrick Cyr to claim pole position on Friday.

Tremblay and Cyr were in a league of their own during the 20-minute qualifying session, breaking into the 1:46 lap times early and putting a near-one-second gap between them and the rest of the field as they fought for pole position.

The newly-crowned champion would hold the top spot for the final ten minutes despite a late charge from Cyr, who closed to within 0.186 seconds of Tremblay with two minutes to go as he chased a first career pro pole.

Cyr would find himself in unfortunate track position however, as he was slowed by a pair of riders ahead of him on the final lap and was unable to improve again as the clock hit zero, allowing Tremblay to escape with an eighth career pole and first of the season.

That moves the Turcotte Performance Suzuki rider out of a tie with Kenny Riedmann and into sole possession of fifth on the all-time list since timed qualifying was adopted in 2000, now halfway to Jodi Christie’s record of 16.

The 19-year-old Cyr would tie his season-best grid spot in second, an impressive ride for Economy Lube Ducati as he put almost a full second between himself and teammate Elliot Vieira in third.

Vieira would displace John Laing in the last three moments to put a pair of Economy Lube Ducati’s on the front row, squeezing past Laing by just 0.021 seconds and pushing the Vass Performance Kawasaki rider to the second row.

That will also help teammate Cyr claw back two points on Laing in the fight for second in the championship, with now just five points separating them entering the season finale.

Alex Michel found late improvement for SpeedFactory67 Kawasaki to jump to fifth and the centre of the second row, an excellent qualifying performance for the second-year rider out of Montreal.

That late time attack bumped Andrew Van Winkle to sixth, with the FD Racing Suzuki rider falling just 0.4 seconds off a front-row spot in what is shaping up to be a very close battle for the final podium places.

Dylan Bauer will lead off the third row in his first ever race weekend at Shannonville, putting his OneStop Goat Shop Yamaha in seventh and just over a half-second behind Vieira in third.

Centering the third row will be the most recent winner in the class in Trevor Daley, though the OneSpeed Suzuki rider will have a tougher time repeating his string of “daily doubles” as he fights through a wrist injury this weekend.

Completing row three is 16-year-old Philip DeGama-Blanchet, who found himself at the back of the midfield group but only 0.7 seconds behind a debut podium if the pace stays the same for this weekend’s doubleheader.

Marco Sousa rounded out the top-ten for Suzuki Canada, albeit a more comfortable three seconds behind pole, with Drew Weber set to start alongside him in eleventh.

Rookie Mack Weil would have started next to Sousa but was disqualified for failing to report to post-qualifying tech inspection, shunting him to the back of the grid for Snow City Cycle Kawasaki.

Absent from the Sport Bike grid this weekend will be Ben Young, who was forced to pull out due to electronics issues on his privateer Scot-Build machine and will instead focus on wrapping up a fourth career Canada Cup in the GP Bikes Pro Superbike class.

Full results from Pro Sport Bike qualifying can be found here.