Bowmanville, Ontario – The battle for the 2023 Bridgestone Canadian Superbike Championship continued to heat up on Sunday, as Ben Young won race two in the GP Bikes Pro Superbike feature class at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.

Similar to race one on Saturday, Young saw championship leader Alex Dumas grab the holeshot off the line, but again needed just a handful of corners to seize the lead from his main rival.

Unlike race one, however, Young failed to break away from the chasing pack, as Sam Guerin moved past Dumas and quickly latched onto the reigning champion with the lead trio separating from an eight-rider group.

Young would eventually squeeze out a slightly more comfortable gap, which would force Dumas to ramp up the pressure on Guerin in second, running nose-to-tail right to the final lap of the race.

While Young crossed the line for his second consecutive win, Dumas attempted a daring pass into the final corner, only for Guerin to respond with a beautiful switchback and win the drag to the line for second.

That proved to be another blessing for Young, who scored the 13th Superbike victory of his career – moving him into sole possession of fourth all-time – and cut his title deficit to just 14 points after trailing by 36 prior to CTMP.

“These guys pushed me right to the end, but our Van Dolder’s Home Team BMW continued to work great again today, and these Bridgestone tires held up really well for all 18 laps,” Young said. “It’s been a trying year, but the highs are always really good and the lows are a bit tough, so we’re trying to put a smile on through it all.”

Young will continue to thank Guerin for his efforts, as the EFC Group BMW rider has been a thorn in the side of Dumas for two of three Superbike races this weekend, playing a massive role in the championship fight while helping lift BMW to the top spot in the Constructors standings.

“Another BMW one-two, it feels like a win,” Guerin said. “I was trying to latch on to Ben before Alex got me a couple times in the first few laps, but thankfully I managed to get him back at the end.”

As for Dumas, the Purple Skull Brewing/Liqui Moly rider confirmed he was still feeling under the weather on Sunday, but looked much stronger on-track despite his last-corner pass coming up just short.

“The pace was good – faster than yesterday – but Sam was also,” Alex said. “I was trying to save some energy for the last lap, but it didn’t stick. We still have the points lead, so hopefully we can keep it positive and get some better results in Shannonville.”

Not far behind the battle for third was another 18-lap duel between Jordan Szoke and Tomas Casas, where Casas led for majority of the first half of the race before Szoke took over in the second half.

Sebastien Tremblay became the sixth different winner in seven races of the Liqui Moly Pro Sport Bike class, fending off Elliot Vieira for his first victory of the season.

The 2021 champion crashed out of the round three make-up race on Friday and failed to make the start in race one on Saturday, but made up for all of it with a resilient effort to score his first win since switching to Turcotte Performance Suzuki machinery.

“I knew Elliot had a bit more top speed, so I tried really hard to push into turn five every time and build a gap,” Tremblay said. “Our weekend started really badly – we actually had to rebuild the bike on Friday – but this is a much better result.”

Vieira pushed Tremblay from start-to-finish but was unable to launch a proper move, even with an advantage down the Andretti Straightaway aboard his GP Bikes Ducati.

“Tremblay rode the ass of that Suzuki! I had the draft on him, but he was so consistent in the first half of the track,” the race one winner said. “It sucks to not win again, but it’s the best we could do today.”

While Vieira and Tremblay ran their own race up front, the battle for the championship heated up behind them, as David MacKay ran a quietly solid race to complete the podium.

The ODH Snow City Cycle Kawasaki rider stuck with the lead duo for the first few laps before fading back into a lonely third, a smart move for the championship frontrunner as rival Matt Simpson could only manage fifth on the day.

“That was the point of the race today, to just keep the points intact,” MacKay said. “I latched onto them at the front until there was a gap behind, and then I just tried to avoid any mistakes.”

The unfortunate showing for Simpson stretches MacKay’s lead to 16 points with two races to go in round five, a still-manageable gap but one that went in the opposite direction for the Blackstock Motorsports Yamaha rider.

His effort was partially unraveled by a career day for rookie Nathan Playford, who denied a last-lap pass attempt to take fourth aboard his Playford Company Inc. Ducati, marking a pair of V2 Panigale’s inside the top-four.

Casas added to his day with a second consecutive victory in the Bickle Racing Pro Twins class, completing a weekend sweep in his one-off appearance aboard the Acme Motorsports Yamaha machine.

Casas moved comfortably into third in the championship after just two races, winning comfortably again in the split-class race.

Full results from Sunday’s races can be found on the series’ official website at CSBK.ca.

For more information on the Bridgestone Canadian Superbike Championship, visit www.csbk.ca

Bowmanville, Ontario – The gap atop the Bridgestone Canadian Superbike Championship shrunk considerably on Saturday, as Ben Young blitzed the GP Bikes Pro Superbike class in race one at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park.

The pole-sitter was briefly displaced by rival and championship leader Alex Dumas off the line but needed just one turn to get him back, passing Dumas into turn two and leading the rest of the way in the 20-lap feature.

As Young continued to stretch his early lead, the battle behind him began to take shape as Dumas was quickly hunted down by Sam Guerin and Tomas Casas, igniting a three-rider clash that would continue right to the finish.

Both Guerin and Dumas would take turns in second while Casas – crucially down in horsepower – stayed in tow in fourth, though Dumas seemingly had the final edge with five laps to go.

Instead, Guerin launched a spectacular pass off the long Andretti Straight into turn eight with just three laps remaining, before Casas immediately began to pressure Dumas for third. Dumas would retaliate and attempt a last-corner pass on Guerin, but it proved to be unsuccessful as he was relegated to the final podium spot.

That turned a great day into an even better one for Young and the Van Dolder’s Home Team BMW squad, as he trimmed his 36-point championship deficit to 25 with five races to go.

“It wasn’t easy at all out there, but I’ve never seen that kind of gap in a Superbike race at this track,” Young said about the circuit which is notoriously tough to breakaway at. “The team’s working so hard and this BMW is phenomenal, so I feel like we could have done this all year without some of our bad luck.”

The win also moves Young into the top-five for career Superbike class victories, entering a tie with Don Munroe and Michel Mercier for third in history with 12 all-time.

"It feels great. There's a lot of legends around in our sport, so I'm really happy to be a part of that," Young added.

Despite his early-season misfortune, Young has clawed himself back into the title mix in part thanks to Guerin’s efforts to disrupt Dumas on Saturday, keeping his EFC Group BMW ahead of both the title leader and Casas at the line.

“That was a crazy one, battling with Alex and Tomas right from the start was so much fun,” Guerin said. “I was trying to fight my way through both of them, but they made it hard on me right to the end!”

The result added insult to injury for Dumas, who admitted on the podium he has been under the weather this week and felt the effects more than he thought he would as he tried to keep his Purple Skull Brewing/Liqui Moly Suzuki as close to Young as possible.

“I’m fighting a really bad cold, and it was affecting me pretty bad out there,” a frustrated Dumas said. “I still have a good lead in the championship, but hopefully we can be a couple steps higher on the podium tomorrow.”

The BMW one-two finish also came at an inconvenient time for Constructors Championship leaders Suzuki, who watched their title advantage fall from 28 points to just five entering races two and three on Sunday.

As for Casas, the Parts Canada Yamaha rider endured a bittersweet performance, as he looked noticeably faster than Dumas and Guerin in sectors one and three before losing all progress to a lack of straight-line speed down the Andretti straight.

The hometown favourite ultimately turned in a much-needed performance for Yamaha, who negated the LDS Consultants Kawasaki duo of Jordan Szoke and Trevor Dion in fifth and sixth, as Kawasaki tries to hunt down Yamaha for third overall.

That finishing result for Szoke hardly tells the story of his effort, though, as the 14-time champion was knocked off the grid by a mechanical fire on the warmup lap, forcing him to hop onto his secondary ‘B’ bike and start from the pit lane.

The 20-time CTMP winner needed just a trio of laps to work his way back into the top-ten, before gradually working his way into fifth by lap eight – passing his teammate in the process – as Szoke salvaged a spectacular finish amidst the circumstances.

Wildcard entry Eli Daccache impressed aboard his Milwaukee Yamaha machine, briefly running in the fight for second early on before settling into a comfortable sixth behind Dion, ultimately getting shunted back one place by the charging Szoke as he played a crucial role for Yamaha in the Constructors standings.

Jordan Royds would outlast a late-race duel with Phillip Leckie for eighth, putting his IBEW BMW just a quarter-second clear of the SCM/Tanians BMW rider at the line, while rookie John Fraser managed a solid tenth on his RLS Contracting Suzuki machine to take over the lead of the Brooklin Cycle Racing Pro Rookie of the Year battle.

The feature class will now continue on with two more decisive races on Sunday, beginning at roughly 1 pm ET at the circuit just north of Bowmanville, ON.

Full results from Saturday’s races can be found on the series’ official website at CSBK.ca.

For more information on the Bridgestone Canadian Superbike Championship, visit www.csbk.ca