is champ again
t was a display of power by the two
best-ever AMA Superbike riders
that enhanced the le gacy of both
while adding to the ir historic feats.
American Honda's Miguel Duhamel
won both legs of the Superbike doubleheader, w hic h in it self is not historic .
What made the difference was his win in
the final race of th e day, Lockhart-Phillips
Formula Xtre me, w hich made him the
only rider to win th ree AMA Pro races in
a day. T he Superbike double tied him
wit h Yoshimura Suzu ki's Mat Mladin for
most caree r wins, with 32 apiece .
Mladin made his own histo ry, winning
an unprecedented fifth AMA Chevrolet
I
Supe rbike Championship on the lateimproving Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-RI000 .
"To win o ne is difficult. To win five, I
mean it just shows how strong the te am is
and how strong everybody is in the whole
Yoshimura Suzuki crew," he said afte r
adding the 2004 crown to titles from
1999, 2000, 200 I and 2003 . "It' s nice and
we'r e already thinking abo ut next year.
We've got testing planned now. We 've
had a glimpse of the new bike, and we're
looking forw ard to it. "
The num be r-o ne plate was sewn up
w ith a sixth in the first race , coupled by a
nonfinish by his closest rival Jake Zemke,
of the Erio n Honda team.
14 oaOBER 20, 2004 • C YC LE N EWS
Zemke had highsided violently coming
onto the front straight dur ing Saturday
morning's Superbike practice, landing
hard and banging his head. He wasn't con cussed , but neither was he totally lucid.
When he tr ied to race on Sunday morning. he found he couldn't concen trate .
There was a tire problem that forced a
change , but a few laps later he was done
for the day, and th e season . By the end of
the second race . he'd fallen from second
to th ird in the champ ionship behind
Mladin and Duham el.
Mladin finished w ith SB4 points to SS I
for Duhamel and 490 for Zemke.
The or der of the top th ree was the
40th Anniversary
same in both races - Duhamel , Yoshimura
Suzuki's Aaron Yates and American
Honda's Ben Bostrom.
Ducati Corse brought in a pair of
Europeans to bolster the strength of the
DucatiAustincrew. WorldSuperbikerunnerup Regis Laconi and World Supers port
runner Lo re nzo Lanzi were at VIR Laconi for the first time , Lanzi the second ,
the Italian having tested here earlier in the
yea r. T hey were to team Wit h Eric
Bostrom, but Bostrom dropped out after
pract ice on Saturday citing a lac k of
strength from his linge ring shoulder injury.
Lanzi finished fourth in race one, an
impress ive resu lt given that it was his only
