K&N Filters AmAteur superbiKe & iNside motorcycles AmAteur sport biKe preview
Alex Coelho. photo by neil cameron
duced in 2003, take a look at the results of the Pro Superbike and Pro Sport Bike openers for the 2011 Canadian Super- bike Championship by Parts Canada at Circuit ICAR in late May. Winner of the Superbike race was Brett
The graduaTes I
f you want to get a sense of the im- pact the Amateur Sport Bike class has had on Canada’s national road race landscape since it was intro-
Amateur Superbike class for 2011. And both Amateur divisions feature a year-end purse from enthusiastic sponsors – K&N Perform- ance Filters for the Superbike class and In- side Motorcycles in the Sport Bike category. The Amateur divisions provide an oppor-
McCormick, Amateur Sport Bike class of 2006. Second in Pro Sport Bike was Jere- mie Hade Precourt (Amateur class of 2010), followed by Sean Huffman (class of 2008), Raphael Archambault (class of 2010) and Darren James (class of 2004). If you want to take things a step further,
the opening round of the Harley-Davidson XR1200 Cup was won by Cody Matechuk, Amateur class of 2009, and James finished third. As they say, the proof is in the pud- ding, and the Canadian Pro racing pudding is chock full of graduates from the Amateur Sport Bike series. The talent pool is set to get even larger
this year. Encouraged by the success of Amateur Sport Bike in breeding future stars, national series organizers have added an
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tunity for aspiring pros that few other sports offer. A chance to compete in front of the same fans, media and key manufacturer personnel as the more popular Pro racers, competing on the same tracks. Making the jump from Amateur to Pro is tough at the best of times, but at least through the na- tional Amateur classes up-and-coming rac- ers get a bit of a feel for the stresses and strains of top level competition. At the end of each season the top five fin-
ishers in the national Amateur classes will be required to advance to the Pro ranks if they wish to continue their careers, meaning pick- ing the stars of the following season is a tricky business. Often racers can emerge out of nowhere as contenders. That was cer- tainly borne out at the 2011 season openers. Kristopher Garvie, making his first appear- ance at a Canadian national, qualified on pole for both the Superbike and Sport Bike races, while the wins on Sunday went to Alex Coelho in Superbike and Samuel
AmAteurs get strong educAtion in nAtionAls By John Hopkins
Proulx in Sport Bike. Both were first time winners on the national stage and Coelho had never been on the podium before. Obviously, Coelho has marked himself
out as a contender for the K&N Performance Filters-backed Superbike crown. A native of Longueuil, QC the 38-year-old is more expe- rienced than many of the Amateur con- tenders. The rider of the Black Sheep Racing Kawasaki ZX-6R made his competi- tion debut at Autodrome St-Eustache in 1996, although as mentioned never has he enjoyed the profile he garnered with his Su- perbike win at Circuit ICAR. Coelho will definitely hear plenty from a
number of other racers in the Amateur Su- perbike class this season. Runner-up in the season opener was Alain Lefebvre, another experienced racer aboard a Suzuki GSX- R600. A native of Rouyn-Noranda, QC, Lefebvre is a familiar face in Canadian na- tional competition, having given a good im- pression in appearances in the old Suzuki SV650 Cup and the Amateur Sport Bike class. If he can put together a full season he should make some noise. Burlington, ON’s Jody Greening was third
at ICAR on a Honda CBR600RR. Greening has been a top contender in SOAR regional
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