Beattie, Reynolds clinch support class titles on Saturday at Shannonville

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Category: CSBK News

Published on Saturday, August 31, 2024 19:01 EDT

Written by Cam Bickle

Three more champions were crowned on Saturday at the Bridgestone Canadian Superbike Championship finale, as another thrilling day of support class action wrapped up at Shannonville Motorsport Park.

Headlining them was 16-year-old star Ryan Beattie, who officially clinched the amateur portion of the Super Sonic Road Race School Pro-AM Lightweight class with a fourth-place finish in race one.

Beattie effectively clinched the title in the absence of Baillie Ives but made it a mathematical certainty on Saturday, extending his lead to 38 points by taking fourth overall and third in the amateur split.

The on-track battle ahead of him was a spectacular one between amateurs Cole Alexander and Treston Morrison and top pro Stacey Nesbitt, with Nesbitt grabbing the early lead on a damp but trying track.

However, Nesbitt’s decision to run on rain tires backfired in the second half of the race, as she watched the duo of Alexander and Morrison continue their fierce battle up the road with both CSBK rookies eager to get their elbows out for the win.

Alexander would save one of his best laps for last, however, stretching out a slight lead to score his first career national victory over the 14-year-old Morrison.

Nesbitt would settle for third but a comfortable pro victory, with Jacob Black taking fifth on-track and second amongst the pro ranks to move into the runner-up spot in his championship split.

Dallas Reynolds secured his first national title in the pro half of the Importations Thibault Pro-AM Twins category, finishing third after an early championship-deciding battle with Craig Atkinson.

The victory was a runaway one for J.P. Tache, who did his part to try and stay in the championship mix after grabbing the holeshot and cruising to a 16-second victory, but it wasn’t enough as Reynolds brought home a solid third to clinch the #1 plate.

Former pro Superbike and Sport Bike race winner Jean-Francois Cyr fought his way back from a miserable start to take second, matching the pace of Tache in the early laps before settling for a comfortable podium spot in his CSBK return.

Reynolds would do enough to outlast the early attack from Atkinson, who needed to finish ahead of the Aprilia rider to keep his championship hopes alive but ultimately faded to fourth.

The result meant Aprilia would lock out a national podium for the first time ever in CSBK history, with the veteran trio of Tache, Cyr, and Reynolds accomplishing a rare feat for the Italian brand aboard their RS 660 machines.

Sebastian Silva would finish second in the amateur Twins portion of the results to take over the championship lead from Vincent Wilson, who was declared medically unfit to race following an ankle injury at CTMP.

The split would be won for the second time in a row by Julia Krans, locking them into third in the amateur championship, but Silva’s second place finish was enough to move him six points clear of Wilson and effectively clinch that title heading into Sunday.

The last champion crowned was in the Niagara Race Crafters Ninja ZX-4RR Cup, as Jean-Pascal Schroeder finished second overall in the pro-am race to clinch the inaugural amateur title.

The race was won for the tenth time in eleven races by pro champion Mack Weil, though Schroeder did more than enough to clinch the championship in second while pro Dave Walker completed the podium.

The most dramatic race of the day was actually one of the few not to award a national title, as Laurent Laliberté-Girard took a pivotal victory to cut his deficit in the EBC Brakes Amateur Sport Bike championship to just three points.

Laliberté-Girard controlled his own fate with a dominant start-to-finish victory, grabbing the holeshot and quickly breaking free in the mixed conditions, but he would get a little bit of help on the final lap from Matthew Hooper.

Locked in a battle with championship leader Serge Boyer, Hooper denied a pair of pass attempts earlier in the last lap before the two went side-by-side through the final turn, with Hooper out-dragging Boyer to the line by only 0.001 seconds.

That thousandth-of-a-second may prove to go a long way in the title fight, as it relegated Boyer to third and saw the victorious Laliberté-Girard trim the gap from 12 points down to just three entering the last race of the year.

The graduation of AIM Insurance Amateur Superbike champion Goradn Radisic to the pro ranks and the absence of Tyler Brewer allowed pole-sitter Tyrone Tavares to cruise to a second win of the campaign, albeit after a tough first lap as Boyer grabbed the holeshot.

The Kawasaki rider would pace Denis Giguere and Tavares for much of the first lap before they went three-wide off the back straightaway, with Tavares being last on the brakes to take the lead and never looking back en route to a 16 second win.

Giguere would hang on to second after a back-and-forth battle with Boyer, allowing Tavares to squeeze past Boyer for third in the championship by just a single point and crucially promoting him into a top-three graduation to the pro ranks for 2025.

Full results for the support class races can be found here.