After a couple of solid training/practice rounds at Moto America’s Road Atlanta and Virginia International Raceway, Blysk Racing arrived ready to rumble and well ahead of schedule at Shannonville Motorsport Park for Mopar CSBK Round 1.
Thursday opened a bit on the cool and wet side for the Pro6 Cycle Track Day, and we elected to stay off the track until early afternoon. The conditions made for a bit of a slippery surface, according to some of the riders we chatted with. Sometimes, the smart move is to play it safe. There’s no sense doing laps for the sake of burning fuel, and with the predictions of somewhat warmer weather and better conditions to come, after two afternoon sessions, we called it a day.
Friday’s practice rounds saw us with respectable lap times in the low 1:06’s, behind Ben Young and Jordan Szoke. Generally pleased, we set out to do some routine tuning and maintenance and found a prematurely worn rear sprocket which clearly didn’t have much of a future. With some input from Jon Cornwell, it was determined to be defective and not a result of a worn or badly adjusted chain. Easy fix. We were excited, looking to spend the weekend challenging Friday’s leaders. An encouraging text message from Michael Taylor put the team in a good mood.
Saturday morning’s practice didn’t go as planned. After Jordan’s unusual (to say the least!) crash in practice, fortunately without injury, Sam went down hard, high siding at 150 kph. An injured rider and a badly damaged bike changed our plans in a hurry.
With qualifying scheduled for that afternoon, Sam deferred a trip to the hospital and Paul and I got to work prepping the “B” bike, which hadn’t seen action since 2018 in Nova Scotia. Lots components to swap and settings to get right. Although we had three hours to do the work, one thing I’ve learned is that there’s never enough time. The pressure has to stay on the team without relent, because inevitably there’s a last-minute oversight that needs to be dealt with.
And sure enough, with minutes to go before the end (not the start…the end) of the qualifying session, we were ready to go. A couple of good laps was all we needed to get into Super Pole...until Sam was stopped before he could get on the track, because we’d forgotten the transponder! Fortunately, CSBK had a spare ready to go, we dropped into Sam’s leathers, and off he went.
It never fails. You can never stop thinking, working, double and triple checking everything before going on the track.
We qualified in tenth, in the high 1:06’s, which was pretty respectable given the circumstances.
Sam spent the night in hospital getting his knee and elbow X-rayed and came back to race Sunday morning. Typical of all the racers I have worked for, getting injured doesn’t faze them, doesn’t get in the way. Just part of the game. I think motorcycle racers come from a different mould than the rest of us.
After a few touring laps in Sunday morning’s practice, we were ready to race. Starting from the fourth row, Sam got a great start, and settled into 7th. As the race progressed, it was apparent that he wasn’t happy to just play it safe and collect his points. He kept pushing but eventually ran into brake issues and lost a position.It took several laps before he found his rhythm again, but recurring issues with overheated brakes saw the lever fade to a dangerous point. In the end, he recovered his lost position, and picked off a couple more riders. He missed catching Tommy Casas who ran a good first superbike race, and we finished in 5th.
The setbacks, crashes, and inevitable mistakes are only failures if you don’t learn from them. I think everybody on Team Blysk Racing is happy with fifth place given the circumstances. We’ll take our points, we’re still a contender for a championship, and we’ll take the experience to Grand Bend and profit from it. See you there.
Samuel Trepanier, Beata Marszalik, Mélodie Bourasa Hébert, Paul-Etienne Courtois and Rob Thompson would like to thank the #BlyskRacing sponsors who joined the effort for 2019: Carrier BMW, Lubrifiants Gulf Canada Lubricants , ELLE SKIN PERFECTION, M.M. Carrosserie & Mécanique, Lettrage T2 Design, Neuroperforma, Hindle Exhaust, Pro 6 Cycle, Öhlins USA, Bickle Racing, Turcotte performance, Fab-Mac, Karting St-Zotique, Pat Moto Sport, HotbodiesRacing.com, Dominion Tshirt, ASM MOTOSPORT, Tremblant_SBK, Franklin Motosport, SportbikeTrackGear.com, Dunlop Motorcycle Tires, DP Brakes, Boham Gaz, Apha Racing, BMW Motorrad Motorsport and CSBK.
To follow the team's efforts:
Instagram: @samuel_trepanier
Website:: www.SamuelTrepanier.com
Facebook: Samuel Trepanier
From a press release
