Miguel Duhamel's Superbike and Formula Xtreme Bikes
By BLAKE CONNER
PH OTO S BY KEVIN WING
te r Miguel Duhamel's crew chief, AI Ludington ,
described the Honda team 's first test of the
CBRIOOORR superbike at Daytona, prior to the 2004
season, everything made perfect sense. As I had just
xperienced a full-blown superbike for the first time,
he must have sensed how overwhelmed I was. Maybe he could
just see my lower jaw hanging out from underneath my helmet.
Ludington proceeded to explain how at that first test, only one of
three riders (including Jake Zemke, Ben Bostrom and Duhamel)
dared ride up the banking with the throttle pinned to the stops .
That was Duhamel. And according to Ludington, he only did it
twice - just to see if it could be done. It was nice to know that ,
at least for one brief moment, the factory HRC superbike
intimidated even him - the winner of six AMA superbike
races in 2004 .
In reality there isn't a lot to be afraid of on the
Honda Superbike. In fact, the bike is so refined it
could be ridden on the street - at least until the
throttle is turned past the three-quarter mark .
That's when things get nasty. That's when all hell
breaks loose. I was about as prepared for the
onslaught of power from the CBR IOOORR
Superblke as for a sucker punch in a bar fight.
I've ridden fast bikes before, including
Damon Buckmaster's Form ula Xtreme (pre600 rules) Yamaha RI last year and a couple of
factory Supers port bikes a few years ago, not to
me ntion a lot of fast street bikes. But this was
ridiculous.
The funny thing about riding the Honda
superbike was that I was riding a bike that Team
Honda coordinator Ray Plumb, Ludington ,
Bostrom crew chief Merlyn Plumlee and Zemke
crew chief Dave McGrath didn't feel was quite up to
par in terms of performance. Yet it was a bike that won
exactly half of the superbike races contested over the 2004
season, including the aforementioned six by Duhamel, two by
Zemke and one by Bostrom. The problem was that Mat Mladin
won all but one of the other nine events in the 18-race series en
route to winning his fifth AMA Superblke title.
HRC in Japan put the American Honda boys on a tight leash
w hen it came to R&D on the CBRI OOORR Superbike in 2004 . The
bikes are leased from HRC in Japan for a price that is approaching seven figures - yep , that's damn near a million dollars a piece
per year. And you don't get to keep 'em. How would you like a
$70 ,000-per-month payment on your bike? And they had five of
them: two for Duhamel , two for Zemke and one for Bostrom.
A
JANUARY 5,2005 • CYCLE NEWS
