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Daytona International Speed'Woy
Daytona Beach, FL
Lockhart Phillips USA Formula Xtreme Series
Mr. Daltona?
A record-tying fifth Daytona 200 victory
for Duhamel in Formula Xtreme By
RAy
HENNY
merican Honda's Miguel Duhamel did what
was expected of him, leading a Honda sweep
of the inaugural Formula Xtreme Daytona
200. Erion Honda's Kurtis Roberts was a disappointed second, 42.586 seconds back, after
a pair of slow pit stops on his 2004 Honda CBR600RR. Jake
Zemke came third on a wrongly geared factory Honda.
It was Duhamel's fifth Daytona 200 victory - the previous four came on superbikes - and he tied Scott Russell
for most wins. The win was his ninth in Formula Xtreme,
tying him for the career lead with Kurtis Roberts and Eric
Bostrom, and successfully kicking off the defense of his
2004 Formula Xtreme Championship.
Duhamel won the 68-lap, 200-mile race in I hour, 59
minutes and 31.440 seconds at an average speed of 100.699
mph. Ironically, the Daytona 200 was the slowest race of the
week, though there were pit stops to consider. Kawasaki's
Tommy Hayden averaged 102.339 mph in winning the Pro
Honda Oils Supersport race - without pit stops.
The result was pre-ordained when AMA Pro Racing and
Daytona International Speedway changed the premier 200
from Superbike to Formula Xtreme. Honda is the only factory that contested the class last year and again this year.
Suzuki and Kawasaki supported riders in the 200, but neither made it past the 12th lap. Buell made a big push, only
to pull out when Shawn Higbee suffered serious hand
injuries during a Formula USA race the previous Sunday.
The three Hondas were on the front row, Duhamel capturing his first-ever Daytona 200 pole position by .006 of a
second over Zemke. There was drama at the start with
Roberts drifting into Duhamel as the pack of 69 riders went
into turn one. He would later apologize. This was a one-off
race for Roberts - that may change after his result - and
winning was his only goal. Points meant nothing.
The trio of Hondas broke away cleanly with the lead
changing hands among the three Honda riders each of
the first three laps. They stuck together
until Zemke's first pit stop on lap 20 of
68. Once the pack was broken up,
it never re-formed.
Instead of one
another, the
lead
A
ABRAMS
Hondas had to deal with traffic in a race that
seemed to go on forever.
"This race seems like it's about 25, 30 minutes longer than the old 200 used to
be," said Roberts, who described the
race as "boring."
"The Daytona 200 this year, it
felt like it was the Daytona 255,
because, like Kurtis [Roberts] and
Jake [Zemke] mentioned, it never
ended," Duhamel said.
Duhamel pitted from second on lap 21, one lap
after Zemke.
"It was a fun race there up until the first pit stop," Roberts
said. "The race kind of changed once Miguel pulled in."
Duhamel took over on lap 24, after the first cycle of pit
stops, and except for dropping back for four laps after his second stop, he led the whole way - 5 I laps in all.
"Well, you know, it feels great to win five," Duhamel said,
"but it's amazing to have a bike that's so early still in development,
the 600 Xtreme, to be able to do 200 miles on that bike - and you
know, we're doing 180 miles an hour. It's quite a testament to the
bike, to how Honda builds motorcycles."
American Honda's Trevor Weiler was in charge of making
sure Zemke's and Duhamel's engines finished the race. Most of
it was done by using stock valve gear, conservative HRC
camshafts and stock pistons.
"We just went with a real safe program," Weiler said.
"There's a lot of guys who had failures today. That was
our plan: to make it up on the pit stops. And we've got
to give it to the guys; they made a kickass setup' for
that and practiced it. It worked out."
Miguel Duhamel