At last weekend’s second round of the Bridgestone CSBK National Championship at Atlantic Motorsport Park, the TSN Video crew sat down with Pro Supersport middleweight points leader Torin Collins for an on-camera interview. The following is a transcript of that discussion. Alberta’s Collins went on to earn pole, then crash early in Saturday’s opener in a chain reaction mess on a damp track; Sunday he scored his third win of the season while dealing with mechanical issues.
Colin Fraser:
Last year, you did two CSBK Nat Superbike races (Edmonton, Canadian Tire Motorsport Park) with on two different Kawasaki Superbikes. What influenced you to move back a class to the Supersport middleweight division for 2025?
Torin Collins:
I’m still pretty young. I am not in a rush to get to Superbikes. I have a long career ahead of me. I don’t want to rush the process. I was on Moto3 Bikes, then I got on a 750 in MotoAmerica Supersport, and then got on a Superbike – everything happened really quick. I had a couple of offers to race a Superbike this season, but I thought that racing a bike like the one I race in the States is probably better for my development.
CF:
You came from the development ranks in Europe, the pre-MotoGP scene, where the racing is notoriously aggressive. Of course, in North America, we think our racing is very competitive. Was where you came from more competitive? Is that how you remember your early career?
TC:
Spain made me the rider that I am now. I like to race close. It sounds bad, but I’m not afraid to put someone down for a position. I am here to do well; I will do what I can to win a race – I’m not afraid to take someone out for the win. That’s the way I was taught, over there.
You’re taught how to battle for race wins, how to not go down if you’re taking someone out. Me any my buddies would be on the Go-Kart tracks, spending hours and hours bumping into each other, cleaning each other out.
Even me and Phil (DeGamma-Blanchet, another up and coming western Canadian Pro), when we ride Supermoto, we mess around, try to take each other out.
MotoAmerica can be pretty cutthroat, and I’ve got in trouble for my behavior, MotoAmerica sat me down and talked to me for being too aggressive, for elbowing people on the straights, all that. You don’t see it too much, since I’m still mid pack, but I can be pretty cutthroat.
CF:
Last weekend at Elkhart Lake in MotoAmerica, you had a promising effort, made some steps. A little over a decade ago, Brett McCormick was racing in the US, and after a promising start, things came apart, and nobody down there cared about him. Some of us here in Canada were worried that the same thing was happening to you.
Are you getting recognized for the good things you are doing? Was last weekend a step?
TC:
Honestly, this whole season has been a step. The first round didn’t really show it, I went down in the rain, I struggled. But I’ve had three top tens in a row now, in race two at Road America I lead the second group for almost every single lap. I think I’ve made a step this year, for sure.
CF:
In terms of mechanical specifications, the bike you are riding in the US in an FIM Generation two Suzuki GSX-R750, with specific throttle bodies and engine management as per World and MotoAmerica rules. We don’t have those rules, we have Dyno and weight restrictions. Canada does have some of the US spec race Suzukis, with Trevor Daley and John Laing’s ex-Ben Young racer bikes, while you and class Champ Seb Tremblay have machines built more for the Dyno than the MotoAmerica rules.
How different are the two specs of GSX-R750s that you currently race in the US and in Canada?
TC:
Power wise, it’s a massive difference. My MotoAmerica bike puts out around 132 horsepower on a rear wheel dyno. This Canadian bike is putting out 118, 119 – we’re running it pretty slow, so we don’t blow over on the Dyno. We really don’t need all the power on most of our Canadian tracks.
We have triple clamps, suspension – I’ve got my K-Tec suspension, the stuff I run in MotoAmerica. Willie Vass (Alberta based builder who works with Ben Young) works with my team in MotoAmerica, and he kind of helps transfer the setting between the two bikes.
The bikes are similar, except for power and electronics. The feel, the way it handles, the way it brakes – it is similar. In MotoAmerica, I have my data guy to change engine braking, and all that stuff, and I don’t have any of that here.
There are differences, but I have noticed, by riding in two Championships, I have become a lot more comfortable on the bike in general, especially with the bike moving around.
If this were last year, coming out of the last corner (onto the front straight at Atlantic Motorsport Park), I wouldn’t be able to do what I can do now – moving around, on the grass, all that stuff. It’s good I can go between the two bikes in the two Championships.
CF:
You mentioned Willie Vass, a tuner who is famous for building confidence with top racers. How do you view working with Vass?
TC:
I haven’t worked with Willie a whole lot yet. He helped with the ZX-10R I rode at the National at Rad Torque (Edmonton) last year. We still don’t know each other that well.
I’m really particular about a stiff bike, he’s not use to how stiff I want the bike, but after a couple of rounds, we’re working really well together – I have never felt so comfortable on the bike. It’s great working together, with my Crew Chief too, we get together at the end of the day to sort everything out.
CF:
Most people in North America have no idea about the feeder classes and structure in southern Europe that led to the MotoGP classes in the World Championship. You were part of that world for some time, and know that culture in Italy and Spain, where the young guys are riding almost every day of the week.
Could we say you are almost as comfortable now riding GSX-R750s in North America as you were riding small bikes with your friends in Europe two year ago?
TC:
I’m getting there. The difference is that you have so much track time over there; I was riding six days a week, and my training schedule was just ridiculous. I just don’t have that opportunity back home.
I’ve had lots of back-to-back weekends with MotoAmerica and CSBK, so I’ve been riding more – I’m getting close to being fully comfortable.
But I’m still not getting my true potential out of the bike. I think I’m way better than eighth, and I’m capable of a podium in MotoAmerica. We’re getting close. We have a little bit further to go – it’s mostly my riding. I’m close to getting the full potential out of the bike.
CF:
Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin and Shubenacadie, Nova Scotia, have little in common in terms of racetracks.
Three weeks ago, you were at Shannonville for the first time, and people were talking about how quickly you got up to speed on a track others know very well.
Most people don’t know your riding style that well; they haven’t watched a lot of European racing. But they say you can’t ride the bike the way you like to ride it at “track X.” Now you are checking off one new track after another. Is there a type of track you prefer?
TC:
An aggressive track. A hard braking track. Go all in, all action. For instance, Rad Torque: there are a lot of all action corners, and that is why I gel with that track really well.
Elkhart Lake has a lot of hard braking, so you can really attack it.
I’m not a huge fan of really fast, flowing corners – it’s a lot more ballsy to go through those corners at full tilt.
It takes a lot more confidence to go into a corner, onto the rev limiter, and throw it in.
I prefer lots of hard braking corners.
CF:
Let’s talk about that, and how you ride the motorcycle. It’s easy to watch you ride and say you do this or that, but with the foot dangle, you seem to be pivoting the bike with the steering head angle almost vertical, on the brakes.
Sometimes, you appear to be crashing, and sometimes, you appear to be falling while you are passing people!
How do you develop the confidence to keep doing these things?
TC:
It comes down to my training over in Europe, trying to get the most out of the bike.
I truly believe the “smooth is fast, calm is fast;” I think that is bullshit.
I don’t think that is correct in today’s way of riding.
You see with all the young riders, especially all the young riders in MotoAmerica, Kayla Yakov, Blake Davis, me – all the young guys in World Supersport, they are all action.
So, when people say you have to be smooth, I just don’t agree at all.
CF:
Do you need to have the weight of the bike pivoting on the front end for you to feel like you are getting a proper entry to the turn?
TC:
The reason I am so sideways on the brakes, it feels more comfortable when the rear is further out. Because you are counter steering, I feel like if the front-end folds, it will just go straight – rather than actually folding.
That’s why I can go way later on the brakes, and I’m fully sideways, and the front folds, I just go straight.
CF:
So when you are passing Trevor Daley for the lead on Sunday at Shannonville in Allen’s Corner, on the first lap after the restart, and the door is open, do you think it might be a good idea to look out of control as you make the pass? So, he sees that, and the staff in the pits and the fans in the grandstand see that?
TC:
Honestly, I wasn’t intending on being as out of control as I was! But I didn’t want Daley to lead a single lap; my father, before the race, told me to dominate.
I didn’t want one person to do a full lap in front of me. I passed him just before the back straight, I knew I was going to make the pass no matter what, if I was out of control or not.
And it worked. That’s what I had to do to make the corner – rear wheel in the air, then my feet started to come off the pegs, but I made it! It worked.
CF:
What about at the end of the last lap on Sunday, when it looked like you glanced behind and almost lost it coming onto the front straight?
TC:
I told my Dad I wanted to wheelie across the line. So, I looked behind to be sure someone wasn’t right one me, and I started accelerating, and I thought “Oh, no.”I tried to wheelie, didn’t, put up a peace sign – it wasn’t intentional at all.
CF:
In the US, you have a team, but in Canada, you have a dad, Rupert. That’s a lot of pressure, expectations, on your dad.
At Shannonville, on the podium, you made a big point of thanking him for everything, the huge effort with a new machine for 2025.
Is it a concern to have a small crew? No one else is doing it this way.
TC:
I don’t want to diss my dad, but it’s pretty obvious he is not a race mechanic. Before the season started, testing the new bike, he sent me out, and the whole bike was a mess. So, we got Willie to check it, and at this round we have some help.
We don’t touch the set-up on the bike, so if I have an issue, I have to ride through it.
But, for instance, at Road America with my team it is amazing, because I have four people working around me. If I snap my fingers, they’ll do whatever I say.
But here (in Canada) I kinda have to ride around the issues. I don’ mind – I am used to it.
The only difference is my dad puts a lot of pressure on me too – which I appreciate. He has made me the rider who I am now. It’s more pressure than a lot of dads would make, he expects a lot from me.
I got pole position in Supersport, and by his facial expression, I don’t know if I’m last or first.
It’s great to have him here, but it’s a very different environment than what I’m used to in the States. There, it’s just me working with the team.
Here, it’s Dad. It’s something different for sure.
CF:
Speaking to reigning middleweight Champ Sebastien Tremblay, he compared you to Toprak Razgatlioglu in World Superbike, and how initially the other riders didn’t like to be near him since it was hard to predict where he was going.
TC:
At Shannonville, Tremblay told me that I scared him, because “I’m scared the way you back it in, I’m scared to ride with you.”
It’s kind of an ego boost, that no one wants to be close to me. I’d rather just pull away and not have to deal with anyone – although I do like a good battle. But it is nicer to dominate than to have to struggle.
It’s good that people are afraid of me. I hope I have a couple of more battle this round, and I can show my aggressive passing – I didn’t get to show much of that at Shannonville, expect my one pass on Trevor.
It’s nice that people are worried to be around me. It’s my riding style, I guess it’s similar to Toprak, but every rider has their own way, and that’s the new gen of riding.
Blake Davis rides the same way, and that’s just the way it is. He’s always been doing really well in MotoAmerica. I don’t think what he is doing is wrong, and I don’t think what I am doing is wrong, either.
CF:
Can you give us a summary of your double success at Shannonville’s National opener?
TC:
Honestly, I was talking to Phil (DeGamma-Blanchet) before the weekend, and I said I would be happy with a Podium; I don’t know the track and a lot of people have done a lot of alps around there. But I gelled with the track on Thursday, I was up to speed, and I figured I could put it on Pole.
I’d never really started a race from Pole before, and I really don’t like leading laps. I prefer to sit behind someone until late in the race – it’s easier mentally. Leading the race is mentally draining.
Race on, I just pulled the pin, and I went. My Dad kept messing with me with the Pit Board, putting up a smaller gap even though it was the same the whole time, I had a moment here or there, but that was bound to happen – that’s just my riding style. I was out of the seat, but I’m OK with that.
In race two, Tremblay got me on the back straight, but I passed him on the outside of the next turn, and I knew he didn’t have anything on me. If Sebastien can’t get me on the brakes, no one else will be able to.
It was a shame that Matt (Simpson) went down. I felt like he could really push me. I felt like if there was anyone who could catch me, it would be Matt. I knew after race one I had my work cut out for me, because Matt would go home and think about how to beat me the next day.
It’s a shame that he went down, but after that the pressure was off.
With the restart on Sunday, I’m not really good at starts, so I figured Daley would get me into turn one. But he knew I would make the pass before the back straight. He moved all the way to the left, but he knew I was going to go for it.
I wanted to lead – I didn’t want anyone to think that they have anything on me. Once I got by him, I just put my head down and I went!
CF:
A fan asked me to ask you about your style and if you prefer right hand or left hand turns.
TC:
I definitely prefer left hand turns, it’s easier on the rear brake as well (Leg dangling into right hand turns means you can’t reach the rear brake pedal as easily). Left handers feel much more natural, when you’re turning right and you leg dangle, you aren’t really covering the rear brake. The Lefts are way more comfortable for me.
Unless it’s a really hard braking corner, the leg dangle just helps you shift you weight – it lets me flip the bike over easier (in transitions) and use the rear brake to settle things down.
I spent four years practicing it, and I don’t expect other people to be as comfortable doing it as I am. It’s just to my advantage.
CF:
How long do your boots last?
TC:
I am trying to have them last longer this year, but I went through seven pairs of boots last year. Fortunately, Fusports boots (an Australian brand) give me a lot of boots, they support me, and they understand the leg dangle – they support a lot of young riders.
This year, I haven’t gone through any boots, after three MotoAmerica rounds and CSBK.
Every race of the Bridgestone Canadian Superbike Championship’s two feature pro categories will be broadcast nationwide in 2025, with TSN and its French-language affiliate RDS confirming 36 episodes for the 2025 season. Visit www.csbk.ca for schedule details.
