Christie takes Pro Sport Bike pole

ST-EUSTACHE, Que. – Jodi Christie qualified on pole for Sunday’s second round of the Hindle Exhaust Pro Sport Bike Championship at Autodrome St-Eustache with a time of 46.918 on his Jodi Christie Racing / Honda Canada / Accelerated Technologies Honda CBR600RR on Saturday.

Points leader Kenny Reidmann of Belfountain, Ont. bounced back from a fall early in the qualifying session to set the second fastest time of 47.386 aboard the Reidmann Racing / Castrol Triumph 675 and Raphael Archambault of Terrebonne, Que. qualified third at 47.778 riding his Mako Performance / Town & Country Suzuki GSX-R600.

By qualifying on pole Keene, Ont.’s Christie managed to shrink Reidmann’s class points lead to 10, 59-49 heading into Sunday’s race.

“We threw on a soft Dunlop near the end of the session and it felt much better, especially in the right handers,” said Christie, who is looking for a fourth straight class title. “We haven’t changed the bike much. I’ve just been trying to ride conservatively without putting it on the ground. The one point difference between qualifying second or on the pole isn’t as much as the difference between qualifying second and crashing.”

Pedro Sousa of Mississauga, Ont. will start on pole for Sunday’s Magneti Marelli Amateur Superbike race after turning a lap at 49.071 on his Honda CBR1000RR and Alexandre Guay of Laval, Que. qualified fastest for the Bell Helmets Amateur Sport Bike class with a time of 48.908 on his Yamaha YZF-R6.

Eric Quintin of Notre Dame de l’Ile Perrot, Que. won the first of this weekend’s two races for the Honda CBR250R National Race Series, taking the checkered flag 3.346 secs. ahead of Laval, Que.’s Pascal Bastien. Bastein just beat Oakville, Ont. racer Cameron Walker to the line for the runner-up spot.

Walker did take over the points lead heading into Sunday’s second race, with 136 to the 131 of Quntin. Jacob Shaw-O’Leary of Falmouth, N.S. lies third with 129 points after finishing fourth on Saturday.

Action at Autodrome St-Eustache concludes Sunday with feature races in all five national classes. Practice begins at 10:00 with the first race, for the Honda CBR250R series, launching at Noon.

For ticket information call (450) 472-6222 or (514) 591-4388, or visit www.autodrome.ca.

The official Mopar Canadian Superbike Championship website, www.csbk.ca, will have full race video coverage of Saturday’s round of the Honda CBR250R National Race Series, as well as Sunday’s Hindle Pro Sport Bike and Mopar Pro Superbike feature events.

Hindle Exhaust Pro Sport Bike Qualifying Results

–By John Hopkins

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