Casas completes CBR250R sweep

By John Hopkins

MONT-TREMBLANT, Que. – Tomas Casas pulled off a sweep of the Honda CBR250R National Race Series races at Le Circuit Mont-Tremblant on Sunday, grabbing his second win in two days on the Peterborough Cycle Salvage-backed entry.

The Peterborough, Ont. racer grabbed the lead on lap seven of the 10-lap race and held off regular sparring partners Stacey Nesbitt and Ryan Roche at the line. Nesbitt finished second for the Powersports Canada team, just 0.284-secs. behind Casas, with Roche only 0.441 secs. behind at the line.

Roche had been forced to start from the pit lane after missing the warm-up lap and charged through the field to battle for the win. But the Pickering, Ont. rider was judged to have illegally passed riders on the outside of the chicane when he joined the race and he was penalized 10 seconds, which dropped him to fourth in the race order.

The penalty carried added significance, as it means that Nesbitt takes over the lead of the CBR250R point standings heading to the season-ending doubleheader at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park August 24-26. The St-Lazare, Que. rider now has 360 points to the 356 of Brooklin Cycle-backed Roche.

Despite his sweep of the Mont-Tremblant race wins Casas is a longshot for the title thanks to a pair of DNFs and sits 72 back of Nesbitt with 288. The youngster has shown his pace, however, and has now won four of the last five races in his first year of national competition.

Roche’s penalty promoted Baillie Ives of Halifax to third in the official results after an impressive performance. The Pro Cycle-backed rider held off Roche for four laps as the Pickering, Ont. rider tried to make his charge up from the back.

Costa Mouzouris of Inside Motorcycles maintained his perfect record in the Media Challenge portion of the CBR250R series, taking his sixth win of the season (he did not travel to Atlantic Motorsport Park). As usual, the Montreal rider was able to mix it up with Casas, Nesbitt and Roche, before settling back to allow the overall championship contenders to resolve matters amongst themselves.

Pascal Bastien from Moto 123 was runner-up for the second straight day and Neil Graham of Cycle Canada took third.

Race Results

Point Standings

Media Challenge