ROuNd 1 REcaP
dian Superbike Championship by Parts Canada May 28-30, but the sun shone on Brett McCormick and the radX HD / BMW Motorrad Canada race team. The Saskatoon racer celebrated his re-
PRAIRIE FIRE M
IRABEL, QC – The weather was mostly cold and miser- able at Circuit ICAR for the opening round of the Cana-
turn to Canadian competition by scoring a dominant victory in the opening round of the 2011 season on his BMW S1000RR. Mc- Cormick led all 20 laps around the 2.8km track and finished 10.800 secs. ahead of the Nelson Racing / GymMax / Monette Sports BMW of Andrew Nelson. Defending champion Jordan Szoke com-
pleted the podium aboard his Competition Systems Kawasaki Race Team Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R. “I really don’t think it could have gone
any better,” said the 19-year-old Mc- Cormick, who also won the Superbike race
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was working beautifully the rear went away.” Conditions were ideal for the Superbike
Hot MccorMick wins season opener By John Hopkins
at Circuit ICAR in 2009. “I got a good start and wanted to put my head down and try and pull away as quickly as I could. We came here with a pretty solid base set up so we didn’t have a lot of work to do to get the bike working around here.” McCormick’s victory was significant on a
number of levels. For one thing it marked the first win on Canadian soil for the S1000RR almost exactly a year after the bike made its debut at Circuit ICAR at the start of the 2010 national season. The race also marked the end of a seven-
race win streak for Szoke, who had swept every round of the Canadian series last year. It was, in fact, Szoke’s poorest finish in a Canadian Superbike national since Aug. 31, 2008, when he had placed sixth in the sea- son finale at Shannonville Motorsport Park (admittedly while trying to clinch the title). “The way my race went I’m lucky to be
here,” said Szoke. “We had limited time with the set-up because of the bad weather here and we went the wrong way. The front end
feature race, but that was an anomaly through the weekend. A Turn2-sponsored test day on Thursday was washed out, as was Friday’s opening day of official practice and Saturday morning activity. As a result of the latter situation, Pirelli SuperPole qualify- ing was scrapped in favour of a traditional qualifying session on Saturday afternoon. This was the first time the sun managed to break through and it gave a hint of every- one’s potential. It painted a grim picture for everyone save McCormick. The BMW factory racer was on pole with
a time of 1:22.221, a full 1.237 secs. clear of Szoke’s Kawasaki. Nelson and the second radX HD-backed BMW of Michael Ferreira completed the front row, both within a half second of Szoke. Alex Welsh led row two on the Z1 Cy-
cleTech Suzuki GSX-R600 but he was al- most two seconds down to the fleet McCormick. The Couturier Racing S1000RR of Francis Martin and Jodi Christie’s Honda CBR600RR filled out row two. More rain Sunday morning took away
more valuable set up time, but McCormick had little to worry about. When the lights went out to start the 2011 season the former
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