Dumas on pole for Bridgestone CSBK opener at SMP
It may be a new year with new teams, but it was the same old rivalry at the top of the Bridgestone Canadian Superbike Championship as Alex Dumas narrowly beat Ben Young to earn pole position for the season opener at Shannonville Motorsport Park (SMP).
With Young leaving BMW to join Honda this season and Dumas taking his place aboard the BMW M 1000 RR, it was unclear how much of a learning curve each rider would have and who might capitalize on it to begin 2025.
Instead, Dumas picked up right where he left off from his strong 2024 finale, adapting quickly to his Economy Lube BMW machine to pace P1 on Friday morning and advance directly to BS Battery Q2 under the new format.
Young would also be amongst the five names to bypass Q1, taking the second spot in the morning ahead of Jordan Szoke, Sam Guerin, and David MacKay.
Dumas would again carry his momentum through the first stint of Q2, pacing the field with a stellar lap of 1:04.738 – nearly a half-second clear of the rest of the field.
That gap would shrink gradually over the final 10 minutes, before Young turned in his best time of the weekend with a 1:04.752 lap aboard his Van Dolder’s Home Team Honda – only 0.014 seconds shy of Dumas.
It looked like things could get worse for the new BMW rider (Dumas) after he ran off-track in his final stint, negating any potential improvement, but it wouldn’t cost him in the end as Young could only settle for second and the middle of the front row.
The seventh BS Battery Pole Position of Dumas’ career will be a welcome one to start his BMW tenure, but it was an equally impressive showing by Young as the reigning champion finds himself almost even with his longtime foe after switching machines for the first time in his Superbike career.
The 0.014 second difference will wind up the second-closest margin of pole in Pro Superbike history, trailing only the infamous tie between Young and Dumas at AMP in 2022, with the four closest qualifying margins in history all now belonging to the two rivals.
Completing the front row for the weekend doubleheader will be Szoke, who has looked energized aboard his CKM Kawasaki after an off-season of improvements to both his health and his ZX-10RR.
The 14-time champion was briefly in P2 before Young’s late flyer shunted him one position, but Szoke will remain a major threat to the two front-runners as just 0.360 seconds covered the top four.
At the end of that quartet was Sam Guerin, who will lead off row two despite finding himself within striking distance of pole. The EFC Group BMW rider was unable to find any late improvements to climb into the front row but was lapping consistently in the 1:05 range, keeping him firmly in the race-winning mix as well.
Rounding out the top five was David MacKay, the last of the automatic entries to Q2, as he continued to take another step in his sophomore season aboard the ODH/Snow City Cycle Honda.
MacKay tightened the gap to just 0.729 seconds behind pole and nearly a second clear of sixth place, putting him in position to join the lead group this weekend as the 2023 Supersport champion chases his first career Superbike podium.
One of the big stories of the day was Philip DeGama-Blanchet, who was leading Q1 for much of the session before crashing in his first appearance aboard the Taylor Racing Honda.
The 17-year-old would squeak through to Q2 despite it and manage to rebuild his machine in time to climb to sixth in the late stages of the BS Battery session, completing the second row and marking three Hondas inside the top-six.
Trevor Daley will lead off the third row after a great effort aboard his Supersport-spec OneSpeed Suzuki GSX-R750, having put in a number of strong laps late in Q1 to secure his spot in the final session.
Sebastien Tremblay would pace Q1 with a spectacular time of 1:06.795 aboard his own Supersport-spec Turcotte Performance Suzuki, only 0.027 seconds clear of Connor Campbell, but neither rider could improve in the second session as Tremblay settled for eighth on the grid while Campbell claimed ninth for B&T MacFarlane Kawasaki.
Superbike rookie Zoltan Frast put in a strong lap right as the clock hit zero to originally move into eighth and the middle of row three, though the Lean Angle BMW rider was relegated back to tenth after post-qualifying tech inspection revealed that he had used an ineligible tire for Q2.
Just missing out on a Q2 appearance was Elliot Vieira, who was knocked out of the five advancing spots in the final moments of Q1 by another last-lap performance from Frast, though Vieira will still wind up the top Ducati aboard his GP Bikes machine in eleventh.
The feature grid will now prepare for the first half of their round one doubleheader in uncertain conditions on Saturday, with rain expected to impact at least the morning sessions ahead of race one at 3 pm ET.
The full weekend schedule and results can be found on the series’ official website: https://www.csbk.ca/
