Sport Bike Preview: Young returns to face champion Tremblay at Shannonville
Hamilton, ON – It was five rounds ago when Ben Young earned the first “double” of his career, winning in the Economy Lube Pro Sport Bike class before Sebastien Tremblay got revenge the next day at the opener of the Bridgestone Canadian Superbike Championship.
Now, nearly four months later, they will square off once again at Shannonville Motorsport Park.
Young will return to the middleweight class to face the newly-crowned champion Tremblay in round six, with the two greatest riders in their respective classes set to go head-to-head once again with nothing but pride and resumé’s to play for at SMP.
It was Young who drew first blood in the championship, piloting his Scot-Build Suzuki to a victory in the opener on Shannonville’s perimeter “Pro Track” layout before Tremblay reversed the outcome a day later, fiercely fending off Young before a mechanical failure knocked the three-time Superbike champion out of the race.
That was the last we would see of Young in the Sport Bike division, as he chose to pull out of the class and focus on the GP Bikes Pro Superbike category and a fourth Canada Cup, which he can clinch this weekend with a 50-point lead.
Tremblay, however, would continue on to claim a second career pro national championship, taking three wins and six podiums in the next seven races to clinch the #1 plate for Turcotte Performance Suzuki.
Now the math and “safe strategy” is out of the way for Tremblay and almost gone for Young, allowing the duo to fully wage war on the interior “Long Track” layout at Shannonville in what is shaping up to be the most anticipated Pro Sport Bike duel in years.
It was Tremblay who won both races on the Long Track to end 2023, sweeping the finale in his first weekend aboard the GSX-R750 and sending a warning for what was to come in 2024.
While Young has never ridden his privateer Suzuki on the same configuration, he did win two of the three Superbike races in last year’s Long Track finale and has won five of his last seven races overall at the venue, including three of four across the two pro classes to begin this campaign.
It’s hardly a guarantee the two main protagonists will be alone at the front, however, as the grid has changed dramatically since the last time they squared off in round one.
The most recent winner in the class, Trevor Daley, is expected to compete in both classes once again and has already “done the double” twice this season, with a pair of convincing Sport Bike wins aboard his OneSpeed Suzuki.
Daley is a wet-weather specialist but has shown to be just as capable in the dry conditions that are forecast for SMP, and he will have no issue joining the fight with Tremblay and his close friend Young as part of the lead Suzuki trio.
Superstar rookie Mavrick Cyr has taken podiums in four of his last five races since joining Economy Lube Ducati and will have a more than capable teammate in Elliot Vieira, who challenged both Young and Tremblay at the opener.
Championship runner-up John Laing has also been no slouch at the venue, taking fourth and third-place finishes in round one and being a largely consistent frontrunner across the season aboard his Vass Performance Kawasaki.
Laing is in the midst of a four-race podium drought after taking three in his first six races, but the Alberta star has shown the ability to break out in a big way and could do so again in round six, especially if the weather forecast takes a turn for the worse.
Reigning Pro Twins champion Andrew Van Winkle has also proven to be a regular podium threat since joining the class in round three, and he should be firmly in the mix again aboard his old-gen FD Racing Suzuki.
Van Winkle clinched the inaugural Twins title on this same track last season and should have less of a horsepower disadvantage aboard his GSX-R600, with the tight 15-turn circuit lending less of a boost to the new-gen GSX-R750’s and Ducati’s ahead of him.
Another rider young rider with fond memories of the Long Track layout will be rookie Philip DeGama-Blanchet, who captured his first career CSBK victory in the Amateur Superbike finale a year ago.
The 16-year-old looked strong in the Shannonville opener with a fourth-place finish and took podiums in all four of his amateur races on this layout in 2023, giving the Vass Performance Kawasaki star a chance at a maiden pro podium – or more – this weekend.
While Suzuki has already wrapped up the inaugural Pro Sport Bike Constructors Championship and will surely add onto their lead in the last two races, the fight for second will be a fun one to watch between Kawasaki and Ducati.
The former currently sits in the runner-up spot with a three-point lead over their Italian rivals, but Ducati have outscored Kawasaki in three of the last four races and will hope the duo of Cyr and Vieira can do so again despite stiff competition from Laing and DeGama-Blanchet, amongst others.
More information can be found on the series’ official website.
