Just over 44 years ago, many of Canada’s top motorcycle racers were headed to Edmonton – just as they are today. The 1980 event at the long-gone circuit north of the city, Edmonton International Raceway, is considered the start of the Canada’s modern national Superbike championship.
That track closed months later, and the Alberta contingent briefly moved to a rough military runway near Calgary, and then had to wait for the development of Calgary’s Race City to have a permanent home in the late 1980s. Next was a better military venue north of Edmonton in CFB Namao, but 9/11 meant that option was gone. A smaller Go-Kart spec facility worked with Edmonton’s Stratotech, and then Castrol Raceway (now RAD Torque) arrived a decade ago.
Back in 1980, the National Championship was established by the CMA office in Hamilton utilizing local clubs that were willing to pay the sanction fee, post the small prize fund, and then organize the actual race. Some years, no one was willing, but in 1980 both Edmonton and Shannonville stepped up.
However, the strongest regional series at that time was Quebec-based. Backed by Brimaco leathers, the War-Lie group was owned by Montreal’s Eastveld brothers. There had been legal battles between the CMA and the Eastvelds, including rider sanctions by the CMA, and it was safe to say there was no love lost in that relationship.
The Brimaco series booked an event at Shannonville’s Nelson layout on the same weekend as Edmonton’s opening 1980 national. The rider considered to be the best Superbike competitor in Canada at the time, Lang Hindle, opted to stay east, as did the top Ducati effort, the unique Keith Harte Racing 900 Super Sport piloted by “Desmo Dave” Fleming.
This season, the current top gun, Ben Young, is racing at Edmonton’s RAD Torque track for the first time in his career aboard his triple title winning Van Dolder’s Home Team BMW M 1000 RR. Top Canadian at Daytona in the 200 last March, Young recently tested at Suzuka in Japan and scored a Bridgestone-supported ride with a top BMW squad for the upcoming 8 Hour World Endurance round in July.
Big CSBK news is that the Econo Lube program has just signed Young’s arch-rival, 2021 Canada Cup winner Alex Dumas, to pilot their potent if troubled Ducati V4 Panigale Superbike effort. Trevor Dion had this ride but decided to step back from racing after a variety of issues leading into the previous event at Grand Bend.
Dumas controlled the Bridgestone CSBK championship chase for most of last season but was overhauled at fall’s final Shannonville triple header. Then his family-run, Suzuki Canada backed team, tuned by famed builder Patric Goyette, opted to leave the championship after three highly successful seasons.
These Dumas developments have attracted tons of attention, partly because Dumas spent most of his early career racing in the US, where he remains popular even though he has not raced much south of the border since 2020. The exception was Dumas’ entry at the recent 101st annual Laconia Classic, where he piloted a GSX-R600 Suzuki to a reasonable 13th spot overall in the big prize money race in New Hampshire.
So, the focus of attention at Edmonton this weekend, back on the schedule after an eight-year break, will be the renewal of the very entertaining rivalry between Young and Dumas – two smooth operators who are experts at getting the most out of their spec Bridgestone rubber. Neither have been to the 2.7-kilometer, 15-turn layout, but that probably won’t slow their progress for even the duration of Friday morning’s first Pro Superbike session.
Also joining the Econo Lube Ducati effort is top 2023 Amateur Mavrick Cyr, up until now a Triumph triple pilot. After a useful debut at Daytona in March, Cyr has shown well in his first two Pro national races and is actively angling to move up the ranks in an ambitious and justified manner – at Grand Bend he tested an ex-Szoke Kawasaki Superbike, also in the Moxy stable. He also led a Pro eature, in middleweight Pro Sport Bike, for the first time.
In 1993, the big story for the Alberta swing of the Castrol-Motoplan National Championships was the arrival at Race City of the Fast by Ferracci cube van containing the works Ducati USA 888 Desmo twins for Pascal Picotte. The audio of the booming Ducati certainly got the media out to the track!
There is a definite modern parallel in the Edmonton journey of western first timers, Quebecers Dumas, and Cyr, following in the path of Picotte.
That 1993 Race City race was important for CSBK history, since an on-form Champ Steve Crevier on his kitted but not quite fully-factory Kawasaki ZX-7R Ninja defeated the potent Picotte Ducati in the Saturday heat race. (CSBK switched to timed qualifying in 2000 with the arrival of the factory Honda RC51 program).
The Ferracci team didn’t have their fuel injection expert on hand, but several long distance phone calls Saturday night meant that Picotte extended his feature class win streak in style on Sunday in southern Alberta.
It has been a very long time since a Ducati won a Superbike national feature in Canada – 1995 at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. Jeff Sneyd took his ex-Ferracci, Harald Surian tuned Ducati to the win, defeating the expected front runners, Kawasaki pilots Don Munroe and Michael Taylor, in a terrific scrap.
The most recent “exotic” national victory also took place at CTMP when Frank Trombino won a wet Saturday feature for Aprilia in 2014. Unfortunately, Trombino broke his ankle in the warm-up the next morning. The next year MotoAmerica star Claudio Corti visited “old Mosport” with a works Aprilia but couldn’t beat Jordan Szoke’s BMW after a tight Sunday dispute.
Dumas and Cyr leading the revamped Ducati effort will attract lots of attention in Alberta, while BMW’s Ben Young will be looking for a return to business-as-usual. This should prove entertaining and could lead to a revamp of the record books!
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