Need we say Szoke won Superbike again?

Larry Tate

SPECIAL TO THE STAR

After two of only four race weekends in the Parts Canada Superbike series, reigning titlist Jordan Szoke of Brantford is well on his way toward his fifth-straight Canadian superbike title.

He took both rounds of the double-header last weekend at Calgary's Race City Motorsport Park, with big margins in each,.

Still, the 31-year-old veteran said, “It was a tough day, these guys aren’t making things easy for me.” It was Szoke's 32nd career Canadian Superbike victory and his 10th win at Race City.

Combined with his squeaky-close victory over teenager Jodi Christie at the Mirabel ICAR Circuit in May, that gives Szoke and his Honda a 54-point lead over BMW's Francis Martin, with 16-year-old Cody Matechuk of Cochrane, Alberta in third on a Suzuki.

Szoke was equally impressive in the Pro Sport Bike (600 cc) category, again taking both wins although his margin of victory was less than 0.02 of a second in both races. It was Christie who was pushing him; both riders were well ahead of the rest of the field. Those victories gave Szoke a 100 per cent win record for the year, with two double-headers left in the series: at Mosport International Raceway July 10-11 and Atlantic Motorsport Park near Shubenacadie, N.S. Aug. 7-8.

Double podiums for Francis Martin of Sherbrooke, Que., third on Saturday and second on Sunday, moved the BMW Motorrad Canada rider into second in the series in the team’s first year of Superbike racing in Canada. The former Canadian champion said, “It was a very good weekend. I didn’t have anything for Jordan today. The lapped traffic didn’t help me but it wouldn’t have made a difference.”

Kevin Lacombe of St-Césaire, Que., took a second on his Suzuki on Saturday, but crashed out of the action in Sunday's contest, putting Lacombe — who was expected to be Szoke's main challenger this season — in a hole with only two weekends left in the abbreviated 2010 series.

In other racing action at Race City, Raphael Archambault (a graduate of the Honda CBR125 series) took his third-straight Amateur Sport Bike race to built a cozy lead in the series, while Ryan Appenrodt of Quesnel, B.C. and Ryan McCormick of St-Lazare, Que. shared the CBR125 wins. Rob Busby of Brantford took the Sport Twins class.

The circus held its sixth of 18 rounds at the fabled Assen circuit in the Netherlands last weekend, with Fiat Yamaha's Jorge Lorenzo of Spain taking a dominant victory after an early scrap with Repsol Honda's Dani Pedrosa and Marlboro Ducati's Casey Stoner.

That's Lorenzo's fourth victory of the season, making him a strong early favourite to win the 2010 title in the world's top moto-racing series. His famous team-mate Valentino Rossi is out until at least mid-August with a badly-fractured leg, and nobody else has shown the consistency to regularly run up front with Lorenzo.

Farther back, the most impressive rider in the last two races has been Ben Spies. The young Texan, who blitzed the World Superbike circus in 2009 in his first attempt, has already gotten a podium in his first season in Moto GP with the Tech 3 Yamaha team and looks confident racing with the four dominators: Rossi, Lorenzo, Pedrosa, and Stoner. With a third place in the U.K. and a close fourth at Assen (after running second for the first quarter of the race), Spies has definitely arrived in the Moto GP establishment.

At only one-third distance in the series, the gossip around the 2011 grid make-up is already out-pacing the racing coverage, as most of the top riders, including the top four have contracts ending this season.

The rumour mill is hot that Australian Casey Stoner has already signed a deal to move from Ducati to Honda, which in turn has led to frantic speculation that Valentino Rossi will join the Italian manufacturer for an Italian dream team for chief sponsor Philip Morris (Marlboro cigarettes). There'd be a lot more money for Rossi at Ducati; he's been asked by Yamaha to take a pay cut for 2011. Since most of that money would just be handed over to Lorenzo, who's demanding a huge increase, Rossi is less than keen on that scenario, and the 15 million euros ($19 million Canadian) reportedly being offered by Ducati would certainly go a long way toward salving his feelings.

The next Moto GP contest is at the Spanish Catalunya circuit July 4.

With his third double victory of the season at Misano, Italy, Italian Max Biaggi and his Aprilia have moved into a strong lead in the World Superbike series.

Brit Leon Haslam remains in second place on his Alstare Suzuki after an eighth and a second at the Misano circuit, while Spaniard Carlos Checa and his satellite Team Althea Ducati continue to embarrass the factory squad by sitting comfortably in third place, 21 points ahead of Xerox Ducati's Noriyuki Haga and 41 ahead of Michel Fabrizio.

The BMW team continues to make huge strides, with Troy Corser taking the German machine to its first pole position, and leading the first race for two-thirds of the distance, before being passed by Biaggi and Checa.

The cheerful Aussie still seemed happy with his podium, saying, “I got another good start and dropped back inside Max to get the lead. The track was really slippery compared to this morning, so it took a few laps to get a feel for the tire and get a good rhythm. I made a mistake and Max came past, I tried a bit too hard and that was about it for me. It was positive all the same because we managed to stay in front for a good while.”

Corser is sixth in the standings, just behind Haga.

The next race is in Brno, Czechoslovakia, July 11.

Freelance motorcycle racing writer Larry Tate can be reached at

larryt@primus.ca.

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