Calgary racer makes his point

By John Hopkins

Finishing 20th probably never felt so good as it did for Dave Stokowski in the opening round of the Parts Canada Superbike Championship last Sunday.

On his first visit to Calabogie Motorsports Park the Calgary racer overcame a late start to his weekend and the challenges of learning the 5.05km, 20-turn track to score a single series point in the feature race aboard his Blackfoot Motosports/Canadian Kawasaki Motors/Kawasaki ZX-10R.

Although he has been racing for 10 years, the 28-year-old Stokowski really made a name for himself in last year's Parts Canada Superbike round at his home track of Race City Motorsports Park, where he qualified an impressive eighth and finished ninth.

This year he is planning an assault on the HJC Pro Rookie of the Year award, making the single point he earned at Calabogie all the more precious, especially as he was almost left out of the race.

Stokowski's troubles began when he was about a day late arriving at the track after a long cross-country haul from the opening round of the Western Canadian Championships in Mission, BC. He showed up on Friday morning, having missed Thursday afternoon testing. He then had to deal with adapting a kit wiring harness for his 2009 ZX-10R and correcting a rear brake issue. As a result he missed both Friday practice sessions and didn't hit the track until Saturday morning qualifying.

That unfortunately was about the worst time for Stokowski to begin unravelling the intricacies of the Calabogie long track, the longest and most technical circuit on the series schedule.

"It's not the kind of place you want to stick your neck out," he explained. "There are a lot of blind corners. Like in turn three, you have the bike tipped over before you even see the turn. I can honestly say it's more challenging than any place I've ever raced at."

Stokowski ended the session with a time of two minutes, 18.264 seconds, slowest among the 28 competitors and a good two and a half seconds off the pace of the next slowest bike. Series officials were reluctant to allow Stokowski to start the feature, but he redeemed himself on Sunday morning by getting down to a 2:14.053 in the warm-up.

He didn't exactly light things up in the race, but he at least proved he belonged in the field and things are looking up for the remainder of the series. For one thing his bike is staying out east and he is flying to the races, so the travel issues at round one shouldn't be a concern.

"Given the circumstances, 20th was about all that could be expected," he admitted. "Over the course of the weekend I probably did a total of 25 or 30 laps on the track. I felt terrible about what happened on Saturday. That's not like me at all."

Stowkowski is even considering flying in to Montreal to compete in this weekend's regional at Circuit ICAR in preparation for the second round of the Parts Canada Superbike series June 12-14.

"If I'm going to do this I want to do it properly," he said.