10 time Canadian Superbike Champion Jordan Szoke opened up his title defense in dramatic fashion during the season opener held at Shannonville Motorsports Park.

Szoke earned pole position after winning the Dalton Timmis Insurance Qualifying Award on Saturday but found himself caught in a bottle neck of riders in turn two after the start.

"I got a great start, but had to check up a bit in the second corner. It felt like 1/2 the field went past me!" says Szoke from the top of the podium.

Szoke went to work to chew up the 2.5 second lead the BMW rider Matt McBride had gapped on the rest of the field.

I was having a problem and I couldn’t get a good drive onto the backstraight,” explained Szoke who still was able to manage to turn the fastest lap of the race with a 1:04.913 on his Mopar Express Lane BMW Motorrad S1000RR.

The defending champ patiently made his move on lap 18 to earn his career 53rd Superbike win completing the 22 laps around Shannonville’s 2.45km 11-turn ‘Pro Track’ in 23 minutes, 59.587 seconds for an average speed of 134.789km/h.

“I’ve still got some fight left in me,” said Szoke, "But we’ve got a long way to go yet. It’s going to be a long, tough year.”

TSN

Catch coverage of Round One of the Canadian Superbike Championship tune into TSN Canada’s Sports Leader.

Szoke leads the Mopar Canadian Superbike Championship with 10 points going into Round #2 held at Autodrome St Eustache Quebec, Canada