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Daytona Bike Week
STORY AND PHOTOS BY
HENNY RAY ABRAMS
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icky Hayden still doesn't like to
talk about it.
Three years removed from coming
out on the short end in one of the
closest finishes in the history of the
Daytona 200, Hayden still can't
believe he lost. He thought he'd done
everything right. He'd allowed Mladin
to pass him in the infield, he'd trailed
going into the chicane, he'd trailed
coming out. He was confident the
power of his Honda RC-51 would
vault him past the less powerful
Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R750 of Mat
Mladin.
"Going into turn one (on the cooldown lap), they still had my number
69 on top of the scoring tower from
the lap before,· Hayden says of the
2000 race. "When I was looking at it,
it switched to number one,· of
Yoshimura Suzuki's M1adin.
"That's the beauty of Daytona from the chicane to the finish line, a
whole lot of racing goes on in that little bit,· M1adin says.
With his bold choice to lead out of
the chicane and win from the front,
Mladin took the 2000 Daytona 200
by .011 seconds, his 113.361 mph
average the fastest ever. It was a
small measure of vindication for the
1999 race, which he lost to American
Honda's Miguel DuHamel by .014
sees. Mladin came back in 2001 and
won going away, theDaytona win
18
FEBRUARY
26,
2003'
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