Found in Cochrane Eagle

Watching his stepson ride to a second consecutive national amateur superbike title, veteran racer Clint McBain couldn’t help but feel a sense of immense pride.

“Oh man, just to see his progression throughout the year and he’s getting quicker and quicker, it was amazing,” McBain said of his 16-year-old Cody Matechuk. “He goes out and doesn’t just win but he dominates. He sets a lap record, which is a focus for qualifying, and then in the race he’s so mature for his age.”

Matechuk added the Amateur 600 Sportbike class championship to his title in the SV650 series last year as the superbike season concluded Sept. 6 at Shannonville Motorsport Park in Ontario. McBain, meanwhile, wound up third in the Parts Canada Superbike Championships final standings behind Saskatoon’s Brett McCormick and overall winner Jordan Szoke of Brantford, Ont., who picked up his sixth national title.

Matechuk was quick to credit a great deal of his success to the teachings of his stepfather.

“He mainly gets me pointing the right way. He helps me by teaching me riding positions and lines and just how to communicate with the mechanic and all that,” Matechuk said. “Right from the start he has been helping me and has made me into a better rider.”

Matechuk came into the seventh and final stop on the superbike circuit in Shannonville with a commanding 44-point lead over his nearest rival, Longueil, Que.’s Sebastien Tremblay, and rode his Suzuki GSX-R600 safely to a second place finish, easily locking up the championship.

“He could have won the race, but the championship has got to come first and he worked so hard all year long, so why risk it when you don’t have to?” McBain said.

Looking ahead, the adoration displayed by both McBain and his stepson could quickly shift into a heated rivalry as Matechuk is set to turn pro next season, putting the teenager in direct competition with the man who taught him so much about his high-octane sport of choice. If the rivalry was to materialize, it would be the first father-son showdown in the history of North American superbiking.

“It’s pretty cool, it’s never been done before so I think it will be fun,” Matechuk said of racing against his stepfather. “The plan is to beat him but we’ll see where I end up.”

Much like his stepson, McBain didn’t exactly hold back competitive edge when asked about next season’s potential scenario.

“It would be tons of fun for me, at the same time I would go out and try to win as bad as it sounds . . .,” McBain. “He has got to earn his stripes. He’s young, just getting started, I have only got a few years left.
“Hopefully we get enough budget to set both of us up next year but it will be interesting that’s for sure.”
Budget shortcomings have become a constant nuisance for the McBain’s Acceleration Race team. Support from local establishments like Cochrane Dodge has made it easier to cope, however, McBain and Matechuk still constantly find themselves playing catch up with other teams.

“We always have spare parts to put the bikes back together but what we lacked this year was manpower,” said McBain, whose pit crew consisted of just a technician and his brother. “Because we ran two riders and Cody ended up being in title contention all year, if we both crashed on a Saturday we didn’t have enough manpower to put both bikes back together in time.”

Furthermore, finding time to train and fine-tune their equipment is a luxury, as both McBain and Matechuk live in Cochrane but their bikes remain out east during the offseason. Compound all of this with a few last-minute rule changes by circuit organizers and the odds quickly became stacked against the privateer Acceleration team at the outset of this past season.

“It put us behind the 8-ball a little bit at the start, no question,” said McBain, who has raced on the national circuit every season since 1999. “It took a few rounds for me to get going, shake off the winter rust.”

Budget issues aside, there is still nothing that excites McBain more than ripping his Suzuki GSX-R1000 around the various tracks on the circuit, at times reaching speeds over 300 km/h.

“It’s very exciting, we’re on two wheels, not four, and there’s no protective cage around us and there’s often crashing but nine times out of 10 people never get hurt,” said McBain, who himself was left with a sore behind after a nasty spill in Shannonville. “It’s the safest place to ride a motorcycle, believe it or not. Sure, the speeds are high but you are wearing protective gear . . . when you do crash it’s usually on a low-side, meaning you fall inwards and let’s face it we are almost all the way over anyways so it’s not a long ways to fall and you just slide out. On the streets if you do that and hit a car or a curb or something it’s lights out.”

Once again drawing comparisons to his stepfather, Matechuk claims to be a thrill seeker himself, whether it be aboard his superbike or a snowboard in the offseason.

“It’s just the adrenalin ride, I love it,” he said. “Doing something no one else has done before, it’s a rush and that’s why you do it. You just risk it all and hope everything goes well.”