CN
III ARCHIVES
BY LARRY LAWRENCE
A
t one time Mid-Ohio Sports
Car Course hosted what
was annually one of the biggest
turnouts in the AMA Superbike
Championship. There was anoth-
er massive crowd there in 1996,
in spite of rain that started on Sat-
urday night of the three-day race
weekend. Under tarps, umbrellas
and raincoats, those fans came
within a single lap of seeing what
would have been one of the most
historic races in AMA Superbike
history. Had the red flag-plagued
race gone just one more lap, they
would have witnessed Harley-
Davidson winning what would
have been its one and only AMA
Superbike National.
Harley-Davidson factory rider
and Ohio's own Thomas Wil-
son was running second on the
Harley VR1000 Superbike when
Jamie James crashed out of the
lead, causing a second red flag
and ultimately ending the race. It
appeared Harley and Wilson had
finally done it, but a quirk in the
AMA rules meant the scoring was
rolled back a lap before the red
was plenty of reveling going
on down pit lane in privateer
Brett Metzger's pits. The little-
known club racer from Newing-
ton, Connecticut, astonished
the racing fraternity when he
finished third that day at Mid-
Ohio on a nearly stock, self-
sponsored Suzuki, in what was
only his second-career AMA
Superbike start. He'd finished
P124
WHEN HARLEY
ALMOST WON AN
AMA SUPERBIKE
RACE
flag and the victory was then
credited to Yoshimura Suzuki's
Pascal Picotte, who Wilson
had passed just before James
crashed out.
Wilson had given Harley-Da-
vidson its best AMA Superbike
finish ever, but it must have felt
like a poor consolation given the
fact that when James crashed
out it was Wilson actually lead-
ing the race. Beaten by a clause
in a rulebook, the celebration
for runner-up finish was cer-
tainly dampened.
On the other hand, there
Many feel Thomas Wilson
should've been awarded the Mid-
Ohio AMA Superbike win in 1996,
which would've resulted in H-D's
first and only superbike win.
