By John Hopkins
SHUBENACADIE, N.S. – Three of Canada’s top Amateur road racers suffered tough weekends at the third round of the Mopar Canadian Superbike Championship at Atlantic Motorsport Park.
The most serious incident befell Jean-Francois Aubin, who crashed his Suzuki GSX-R600 exiting turn two on lap six of Sunday’s Inside Motorcycles Amateur Sport Bike race while he was running fourth. The St-Jerome, Que. rider, who had come into the weekend second in the class point standings, suffered a compound fracture to his right leg, just below the knee, and was airlifted to hospital in Halifax.
Later in the day two of the top competitors in the Bazzaz Amateur Superbike class were eliminated by separate crashes in almost the same spot on the race track. Simon Hamel of Rosemere, Que. went down at the end of the back straight on the opening lap and Gatineau, Que.’s Tim Robinson did the same while running third on lap four of the 10-lap race. Both riders were on board BMW S1000RRs.
Neither racer required medical attention, but each was nursing injuries from falls during testing at the AMP circuit earlier in the week. Hamel had hurt his back while Robinson had injured ribs.
The falls in Sunday’s race were big blows to their respective class title hopes. Hamel had come to the East Coast second in points after scoring his first national win at the previous round at Autodrome St-Eustache. Robinson had been fourth in points and qualified second to Austin Shaw-O’Leary on the Amateur Superbike grid. After his DNF on Sunday Hamel has now dropped to third in the standings, 47 points behind race runner-up Trevor Daley, while Robinson is now all the way down in seventh.
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