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/912289
CN III ARCHIVES BY LARRY LAWRENCE D id you know David Aldana and Yvon Duhamel were both AMA Superbike winners? If you look at a list of winners today you will not see either of their names. Would you believe it if I told you a Harley-Davidson XLCH scored a top-five AMA Superbike finish? How about the fact that super- bike was once broken down into two and then three classes? The first superbike race to be held as part of an AMA National Road Race at Laguna Seca in 1973 featured a heavyweight and a lightweight class. Then later there were three classes: heavyweight, 750cc and lightweight. Like Duhamel and Aldana, the winners of each of those superbike classes were largely lost to his- tory—until now! AMA Superbike racing, like many other cham- pionships, most notably AMA Supercross, began small, with just a few events, before finding an audience and blossoming into full-blown AMA national championships. In the case of superbike racing, the class emerged from production racing in club events across the country and most specifically in South- ern California. By the late 1960s and early 1970s big four-stroke street bikes like the Honda CB750, Kawasaki Z1 and various European models such as Ducati's 750S, BMW's R90S and even a few Tri- umphs, Nortons, Laverdas and Moto Guzzis were being raced by club racers. Superbike production racing was catching on quickly. The main reason was that fans could relate to the machines, since they were almost exactly like the production models they might buy off the showroom floor. The other factor was Yamaha's sheer domination in American road racing. By the mid-1970s, Yamaha TZs were almost required if you were to have any shot of winning an AMA na- tional road race in both the main national class and the lightweight (250GP) class. Sure, Kawasaki and Suzuki made some inroads against the Yamaha tidal wave in the early 1970s, but the results didn't lie. In 1974, Yamaha won all but a single national road race and in '75 it was a clean sweep for the Tuning Fork brand. Fans longed for multi-brand racing and super- bike racing met that demand in a big way. The first superbike race held on an AMA national race weekend was on July 28, 1973, at Laguna Seca Raceway. At that point it was simply called AMA Heavyweight Production and Lightweight Production. Novice and junior-rated riders were allowed to race in the lightweight class, while the heavyweight division was reserved for juniors and experts. Both classes utilized a Le Mans start. In the lightweight class it was Mike Clarke running away with it on his Yamaha RD350. The class was mainly Yamaha RDs, but Bob Endicott made an impres- sive run on his Action Fours Honda CB350F, the Superbike Racing Pre -1976 P84 Yvon Duhamel was the King of superbike racing before it became a national class and was still called production racing. Here he's shown (17) after winning at Pocono in 1973 on a Kawasaki H2.