After a nearly a month-long summer break, the Bridgestone Canadian Superbike Championship will return to action once again as the series enters its penultimate round this weekend at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park, August 9-11.
The pause in the calendar came at a good time for Economy Lube Pro Sport Bike championship leader Sebastien Tremblay, allowing himself time to recover from the shoulder injury that limited him in rounds three and four, but his return in round five will hardly seem easier – in fact, it may be the toughest grid Tremblay will ever face.
Various wildcards and returnees will complicate things as Tremblay tries to clinch his second career Sport Bike championship, with as many as ten former race winners (totalling 51 victories) scheduled to line up on the grid this weekend, the most in history.
That historic field – which includes two other former champions – will pose a significant question for Tremblay, as he needs only to add three points to his 51-point advantage over John Laing to clinch the championship at CTMP.
The Turcotte Performance Suzuki rider won’t have to force the issue against any of the non-contenders in the championship, instead needing only to keep pace with Laing and Mavrick Cyr to boost his title hopes with four races remaining.
However, pride can often get in the way of the math, and a chance to beat arguably the strongest grid in CSBK history could be the exclamation point on Tremblay’s already incredible resumé.
Headlining that group of challengers is Jodi Christie, a three-time champion in the Sport Bike ranks and the Superbike title winner in 2014. Christie hasn’t raced in the middleweight class since 2015, but it likely won’t take long for him to shake the rust off at a track he won at six times in his career.
Hopping aboard Ben Young’s round one winning Scot-Build Suzuki, Christie will have a more than capable machine beneath him as he tries to dethrone Tremblay, the man who tied him for fourth on the all-time win list at round four (with 15 wins).
He won’t be alone, though, as another two-time champion returns to the category in Tomas Casas. The youngest title winner in class history hasn’t competed in Sport Bike since 2019 but will do double-duty at his home track, returning to both Superbike and the class that he won ten races in (including twice at CTMP).
Casas will do so aboard a more familiar machine, too, as he fills in for Brad Macrae on the Colron Excavating Yamaha similar to the YZF-R6 he raced earlier in his career.
As if that isn’t enough, Tremblay will also have to deal with two other former winners who return to the series, as Trevor Daley and Matt Simpson are both set to appear this weekend.
Daley last accomplished his historic “double” in round two at Grand Bend, winning in both Superbike and Sport Bike on the same day, and the OneSpeed Suzuki rider will try to extend that run of form when he resumes his season at CTMP.
Simpson’s return will be more long-awaited, as the 2023 championship runner-up hasn’t raced in CSBK since last year’s finale. The PMR Yamaha rider and nearby Bowmanville native is one of the six former winners on the grid that has been victorious at CTMP, winning in 2022, and he will hope to repeat that feat in front of his home crowd this year.
The group of new names and faces will further complicate things for Laing and Cyr, but the former will sleep easier knowing that he is also amongst that list of former winners at “Old Mosport.”
Laing’s victory in the rain last season was technically a make-up race from the cancelled round in AMP, but he nevertheless earned his breakthrough win at the venue and has been a mainstay at the front ever since, a run that has kept his title hopes alive with a 51-point deficit to Tremblay and 108 points remaining for the Vass Performance Kawasaki rider.
As for Cyr, the rookie just captured his first career victory last time out at AMP to move to third in the championship, and should have the power beneath him to make his Economy Lube Ducati a tough task down the long Andretti straightaway.
His teammate, Elliot Vieira, has seen his own title chances unravel with three DNF’s in the last four races but will get a glorious bounce-back opportunity at CTMP, the circuit where he scored two runaway victories in his career (including once last season).
Not to be discounted is 2024 breakout star Andrew Van Winkle, who won in round three and nearly did so again in round four after an epic duel with Tremblay. The FD Racing Suzuki star will be slightly down on horsepower aboard his old-gen GSX-R600, but has proven to be at least a podium threat in all four of his races so far this season.
Joining him on the list of dark horses is Philip DeGama-Blanchet and Zoltan Frast, the fifth and seventh placed riders in the standings. Sixteen-year-old phenom DeGama-Blanchet is seemingly the next rider in line for a debut victory, and it could come as soon as CTMP as he looks to join the list of winners aboard his Vass Performance Kawasaki.
Frast, meanwhile, hasn’t raced since round two at Grand Bend but famously took a pair of third-place finishes at the venue, at one point sitting second in the championship as he tries to find that momentum once again at a different circuit for Clare’s Cycle Kawasaki.
The batch of new names on the grid will further boost the Constructors Championship chances for Suzuki, who will continue with Tremblay and Van Winkle while receiving significant help from Christie and Daley.
However, the fight for second may be muddied by the strengthened effort for Yamaha, who will try to hunt down Kawasaki with the help of Casas and Simpson, amongst others.
More information can be found on the series’ official website.
For more information on the Bridgestone Canadian Superbike Championship, visit www.csbk.ca.
Main picture: Sebastien Tremblay (24) leading the field in Pro Sport Bike action from 2023. Tremblay will try to clinch the title this weekend, but will have to do so against a historic middleweight grid. Photo credit: Rob O’Brien / CSBK.
