Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/127698
.INTERVIEW Miguel DuHamel By Henny Ray Abrams 48 o r Miguel Du Ham el , 1995 is something of a hom e coming. H e is returning to th e team that he won the 1991 Daytona 200 with then Camel Commonwealth Honda, now Smokin' Joe's Racing - and thinks he has the best shot since he left there. It ha s been a tortuous rou te for the garrulous French Canadian. In 1992 he made the leap most all road racers covet; to the 500cc GP class, only to land on a team that was - well, less than what he'd hoped for. After struggling through the season, he carded his best finish of the year, a fifth, in the final race at Sao Paolo, Braz iL It wa sn't eno u gh to kee p hi m emp loye d overseas and he retu rned to ru n the AMA Su perbike class with the Rob Muzzy Kawasaki team. At the beginning of 1994, Muzzy said , in a n in terview, tha t he felt the AMA Superbike effort did n' t get the support it need ed or deserved, and the results suffered . At the end of the year it was time for DuHam el to, once again, mo ve on and this time he took, what he calls, "a leap of faith ." Mig uel DuHam el wo uld be the lead ride r aboa rd the brand-new, and mu ch anticipa ted, Harley-Davidson VRl 000 superbike. Teething problems stopped him in his tracks at a number of races, but by midseason the VRlOOO was improving and DuHam el was the man to sho wcase its pot enti al, He rod e it mercilessly and, to much applause, pu shed it to the front of th e field at Mid -Ohio. Again, a minor failu re - a prob lem with the sh ifter forced him to pit while he was running in fourth place, but he went back out to fini sh th e race. Hi s best fin ish w as in Brainerd , Minnesota, a high- speed circuit that was certain to amplify the Harl ey's horsepower deficiency: Making up for it with increased comer speed, Du H am el ran near the front and missed the winner's circle by only a sing le spot. He had hoped to stay with Harley for 1995, bu t a deal couldn't be struck and he ' s moved o n . But the 1994 season seemed like a logical place to start. Let's talk a little about last year. Well, I could see they (Harley-Davidson) were trying really hard so you can't ask for more than that. And the failures tended not to be catastrophic, they seemed to be little things. Like at Mid-Ohio it was a shifter problem. That was pretty frustrating because I figur ed a sh ifte r comi ng undon e is not a new -product problem . Tha t's somebod y w ho for g ot to tighten th at darn b ol t: There were a few tim es wh en .yo u ge t m ad , yo u ge t fru st rated, but yo u jus t don 't sh ow it. You stay awa y fro m the people. Toward mid season it started to get pretty tough, pretty rou gh. How did you ha ndle it? Th e best I could . We had som e good results. Mid-Ohio wa s a good resu lt as far as qualifying and every thing. And the race w as good for a w h ile, when th at happened, they fixed the shifter mechanism and I could have stayed home. But I said I'll go out and put a show on. So I did a lot of stuff that yea r that turned ou t good. Brai nerd was a good race. Brainerd wa s good until I do wn sh ifted and we don't have no anti -slipp ing clutch thing. and I guess I must have hit like a hundred rpms too hi gh o n th e d owns h i ft and it just locked up th e re ar wh eel and started jumping around . So there was no wa y I was going to make the comer. I tried all the way to the curb and finally I went o ff and got in the grass. And as soo n as I hit the grass I was ready to go. So it look ed so good . It looked lik e I didn't lose that much time, I just got on the gas. That was a good race. You considered re-signing wi th Harley for a long time for this year, di dn't you? Actua lly, it was more than consideration. It wa s what I wanted to do, wha t my plan was . I took the leap of faith when I