Edmonton Motorcycle Roadracing Association Round 1 season opener May 29th

Round 1 of the 2016 EMRA race season took place on May 29th at Castrol Raceway, just outside Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Despite pouring rain forecasts all week, the weather was sunny and dry. Rider turn out was at a record high, and the grids were packed. 2015 Superbike champion Mike Zottmann claimed pole position on Saturday for the Expert Superbike race on Sunday, riding his 2016 ZBM Racing, Bow Cycle Kawasaki ZX-10R. In 600 Superbike, Trevor Bernhardt put his ZBM Racing Kawaskai ZX6R on pole position, followed closely by Mike Yurko on his Redline Motorsports Yamaha R6, and Jon Bullee riding his Riverside Honda CBR600RR.

On Sunday, the race season started off with the Senior Open race. Iron man Ian Wall got off to a fast start on his Argyll Motorsports Suzuki GSX-R1000, but was closely shadowed by Jason Kolmatycki and his Riverside Motosport Yamaha YZF-R1 throughout the race. The two would finish the race separated by just over 0.4 seconds. The 600 Super Sport race lined up shortly after. Trevor Bernhart had a good start, but Jon Bullee and Brian Worsdall both got by, having nailed their starts. After some checking up into the 3rd corner, Trevor managed to pass both of them and tag onto the back of Mike Yurko. After 3 laps, and a 2 second gap, Trevor passed Mike Yurko and finished a comfortable 6 seconds ahead. During the Women’s Open race, Lorna Stelmach started her 2016 season with a first place finish followed by Tricia Reese and Chrissy Mitchell. The Formula Thunder race was plagued with red flags; having survived two red flag stoppages, Peter Meier took first place, followed by James Melanson and Lucas Gladhill. The always competitive 600 Superbike race was closely contested by Trevor Bernhardt, Mike Yurko and Jon Bullee. Lap times throughout the race were separated by less than 0.2 seconds. Mike Yurko made multiple attempts to pass for the lead but found himself defending his second place position from Jon Bullee, who was closely following the leading pair of riders waiting for an opportunity to pass. After the race, Trevor commented, “I made multiple small errors, and went slower. Mike got a great drive out of Corner 4 and pulled along side me on the start straight. Late breaking kept me in the lead, and from there I settled into my rhythm and slowly created a gap to win by 2 seconds.” In Intermediate Superbike, Glen Gregoire started on the front row and after some close battling managed to secure a solid second position during the race. He put his head down and closed the gap to first, eventually making the inside pass into turn 4 and taking the win. After the win, Glen said, “Round 1 of the EMRA race series proved to be a good day for me. I prepared myself for a wet race, but the weather turned out to be perfect. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my team, Revolver Racing, as well as my sponsors: Echo Cycle, G.NYUS Action Cameras, Vortex Racing Components, and Spy Optics.”

The grand finale race for Round 1 was the Expert Superbike race. Mike Zottmann got an incredible start and never looked back, clocking the fastest lap of round one at 1.20.7 seconds and creating a 1.5 second gap after just two laps. Former Superbike champion Justin Knapik put in his personal best lap, but it still wasn’t enough to close on Mike Zottmann. After celebrating his victory on the podium, Mike would say, “It was a great first weekend. We had some issues on Saturday qualifying, but at the end we found a good setting. Superbike was again a great race, I got an awesome start and with a fresh set of sticky Pirelli tires I was able to get my ZX10R flying. We set the fastest time of the race and pulled out a good margin for the victory. This is how we wanted to start our defense of the #1 plate. A big thanks to everyone this weekend: Canadian Kawasaki, Bow Cycle North, ZBM Racing, Ktech Suspensions, Vortex Racing, Pirelli, Hotbodies, Redline Motorsports, Redrock Garages, DNA Air Filters, my wife, teammates and friends.”

Round 2 of the EMRA season will be on June 18-19 at the 2.7 km Castrol Raceway road course. For more information check out the EMRA web page at www.emra.ca.