CMSBK wraps up inaugural endurance event at Lombardy

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Published on Wednesday, October 26, 2022 17:59 EDT

The Canadian Mini Superbike National Championship returned to the Lombardy Raceway for one final time in 2022 to kick off their inaugural two-hour endurance race last weekend, October 15, with the event proving to be a major success. 

The race – which was not part of the regular CMSBK calendar, but rather a special “one-off” event – featured two classes and ten teams each made up of a handful of riders, including a range of names from MiniSBK Canada Cup champion Vincent Lalande to CSBK Pro frontrunner Connor Campbell, amongst others.  

The feature Moto-2 class saw early favourite Team Kawasaki Canada get off to a poor start, as Campbell and teammate Che Smith were docked five laps after a pit-in violation in qualifying. That penalty gave an early advantage to the Burns Racing Team of Alan Burns and Nolan Eadie, with their lead seeming to be too much to overcome.

However, the tandem of Campbell and Smith gradually reduced the deficit throughout the race before getting a break of their own, as a mechanical issue for Burns Racing forced them into the pits and negated their lead. The team would return to the track, but the damage was already done as Team Kawasaki Canada cruised to the Moto-2 victory to become the inaugural CMSBK Endurance champions. 

Burns Racing would settle for second, with Team TTR youngsters Cedric Goulet and Andrew Kline completing the podium in their first-ever asphalt running after a late crash for the Team Moto Mike duo of husband-and-wife Mike McGuire and Danielle Perron, who previously ran third. 

The Moto-1 class (made up of three-rider teams) also contested the two-hour event at Lombardy, with Team All Strokes taking the victory behind a sensational effort from Quebec trio Martin Parent, Felix Di Gennaro, and Benoit Belair. 

The All Strokes group had their work cut out for them ahead of the most experienced rider in Lombardy history, with the 14-year-old Lalande leading the charge for Team Bucci in second, where he was joined by Jonathan Massignani and Pierre Chevillard, another all-Quebecois effort that fell just under four-seconds short of the victory. 

Team Big Monkey rounded out the podium in Moto-1 behind the trio of David Mongrain, Pierre Lalande, and Patrick Goulet, holding off one of the more notable teams of the weekend in Team Piston 1, which was made up of Mexican riders Mauro Rodrigues and brothers Adrian and Juan Jiminez. 

While the event was initially scheduled to cap off the 2022 campaign only, the consensus amongst the paddock was that the event should – and likely will – make a return in 2023 and beyond, with only positive reviews in what has been a phenomenal debut year of Mini Superbike racing in Canada. 

From a press release