The order at the top of the GP Bikes Pro Superbike class was shaken up a bit on Saturday morning, as Sam Guerin led a wet FP2 at Atlantic Motorsport Park in the second round of the Bridgestone Canadian Superbike Championship.
It was a stark contrast from the near-ideal conditions on Friday, with cooler temperatures and heavy rain forcing the feature category into a tricky morning practice session ahead of race one on Saturday afternoon.
While forecasts suggest a dry race, the unpredictable Nova Scotia weather meant almost the entire field took to the track in FP2, with the times at least somewhat representative as teams refined their wet setups around AMP.
The circumstances played right into the hands of Sam Guerin, who led majority of the 40-minute session aboard his EFC Group BMW. Considered a wet-weather specialist, Guerin won in changing conditions at AMP a year ago and will hope to do so again on Saturday, starting from the front of row two in fourth.
The rain briefly stopped with roughly 15 minutes to go, causing lap times to drop rapidly before it returned in the final five minutes, producing a large variation in times at the top of the leaderboard.
Despite already leading the session, Guerin capitalized perfectly during that span, shedding over two seconds off his personal best time to go 0.799 seconds quicker than local star John Fraser behind a time of 1:13.634.
Fraser looked very strong around his home track in the rain, sitting inside the top-three for majority of FP2 as he aims for a maiden Pro Superbike podium this weekend for the RLS Contracting Suzuki squad.
The 19-year-old out of Hammonds Plains, Nova Scotia will start from eighth on the grid but has all the expertise necessary to fight at the front, especially if conditions remain wet for race one.
Completing the top three was championship leader Alex Dumas, who had a late crash in turn eight to complicate things for the Economy Lube/Fast Company BMW team.
The superstitious side of Dumas won’t be concerned after crashing twice during round one in Shannonville and going on to sweep the weekend anyways, though his best time of 1:14.979 was a distant 1.3 seconds behind Guerin at the end of FP2.
Jordan Szoke would settle for fourth-fastest after briefly running second to Guerin, but the 14-time AMP winner will have as much expertise as anyone around the circuit and will likely be looking forward to damp conditions if they remain this afternoon, having won so many wet races in his career for the Canadian Kawasaki Motors team.
Pole-sitter Ben Young rounded out the top-five for Van Dolder’s Home Team Honda, looking unusually off the pace in the rain with a 2.2 second gap to Guerin and 0.631 second deficit to Szoke ahead of him.
While Young is considered an excellent rain rider himself and likely won’t be concerned by the FP2 times, his lack of any prior wet running on the Honda may prove to be a challenge this afternoon – though the same could be said of rival Dumas.
Torin Collins ruled out any thought that he may not be as competitive in the rain, putting his Supersport-spec Novalda Suzuki into sixth and just 0.365 seconds behind Young.
The pole-sitter and championship leader in the Pro Supersport category could be a threat for the podium in both classes if he chooses to race in Superbike this weekend, though his focus will remain primarily on the middleweight category.
He’ll have to deal with a host of strong Supersport riders in the rain, however, with Andrew Van Winkle finishing FP2 in eighth aboard his Supersport-spec Mountainview Motorsports Suzuki – just 0.285 seconds off Collins – while Trevor Daley was equally only 0.223 seconds off Van Winkle for the OneSpeed Suzuki team.
Race one in the feature GP Bikes Pro Superbike class is set to get underway at roughly 3 pm AT, with forecasts suggesting clear skies but a potentially damp track at Atlantic Motorsport Park, just 45 minutes north of Halifax.
Full results can be found here.
