The 2024 Bridgestone Canadian Superbike Championship season officially kicked off with a familiar face at the front, as Ben Young snatched pole position in the Economy Lube Pro Sport Bike class at Shannonville Motorsport Park, presented by the Fallen Rider Support Team sponsored by Pace Law.
Young, who will aim for pole position in the feature GP Bikes Pro Superbike class later Friday afternoon, returned to the middleweight category after an eight-year hiatus as he begins his quest for the rare double-title in 2024.
However, things hardly started out in dominant fashion for the Van Dolder’s Home Team Suzuki rider, as he found himself fourth-fastest throughout the opening stint while Elliot Vieira and rookie Mavrick Cyr exchanged provisional pole laps.
Vieira would move the needle once more around the halfway point of the 20-minute session, topping the timesheets with a lap of 1:07.318 aboard his GP Bikes Ducati, but with just a half-second separating the top-five as the pace continued to drop.
Young would finally move to the front with just over seven minutes remaining, narrowly moving past Vieira with a 1:07.170 lap, while fellow title favourite Sebastien Tremblay immediately moved behind him and only 0.104 seconds off the pace.
Both Tremblay and Young would make marginal improvements in the late stages, but the three-time Superbike champion managed to hang on for his first career pole position in the middleweight class by just 0.133 seconds over Tremblay.
The Turcotte Performance Suzuki rider will now line up between his two title rivals on Saturday and Sunday, with Vieira hanging onto third by the finest of margins over Nathan Playford, who put his Playford Company Ducati only 0.006 seconds off the front row and into fourth for the season opener.
Cyr would not improve upon his early provisional pole pace but still managed to escape with an impressive fifth in his first full pro weekend, despite crashing in the final moments aboard his Rizzin Racing Triumph and collecting another rider (both were uninjured).
The field will be set for a pair of potential thrillers on the weekend as the Economy Lube Pro Sport Bike season begins, with just 0.404 seconds separating the top-five on the grid and as many as seven riders within a second.
Race one of the middleweight class is set to get underway at roughly 1:15 pm ET on Saturday, while race two is scheduled for 1:15 pm ET on Sunday at Shannonville Motorsport Park.
Full results from Friday’s action can be found here.
- From CSBK.ca
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