Saturday SuperbikePlanet.com Cinema Presents the 2000 Daytona 200 Pre-Race Show

Miguel Duhamel on the #17 American Honda/Dunlop/Jardine/Shoei-sponsored Honda RVT1000R RC51 tries to hold off Aaron Yates on the #20 American Suzuki/Yoshimura/Dunlop/Motorex-backed Suzuki GSX-R750 during the Wiseco Superbike 100 race two at Mid-Ohio on July 16, 2000.  Duhamel's team mate Nicky Hayden, on the #69 American Honda/Honda Riders Club/Pro Honda Oils/Dunlop-sponsored RC51 keeps the duo in sight as he comes up on a lapped rider going into the carousel just past the mid-point of the race.

With just a handful of laps to go, Duhamel would bin it while leading coming out of the Thunder Valley area, and Yates would take his second win of the weekend in the doubleheader round, with The Kentucky Kid following him home to a hard-earned 2nd-place effort.  

The Honda Super Cycle Weekend presented by Dunlop Tire event at the Lexington, OH. facility was in it's 18th running at the northeast Ohio track, but also in the first-ever weekend of running a doubleheader round.  AMA Pro Racing had experimented with the two-race format since the '98 season at the Road Atlanta rounds, and for the 2000 season Mid-Ohio and Road America would be added to the doubleheader slate in what is now a standard for the top-tiered America road racing class, ala World Superbike, but split into two days of the three-day race weekends.

Earlier in the season and a little over 1000 miles south, the AMA Superbike Championship kicked off in Daytona Beach, FL.with the 40th running of the 200-mile classic at the infamous Daytona International Speedway, in the days when the superbike class was the ruling show and still being run on the full, 3.56 mile course.  The race at Daytona had been run for 19 years on the beach course before heading to DIS for the first time in 1961, so technically 2000 would have been the 59th running of the '200.'

Dean Adams from SuperbikePlanet.com has been busy with his video editing skills and has put together another great Saturday diversion with this pre-race show from the 2000 season.  Saturday superbike cinema at it's best.

A big thanks to Dean Adams from SuperbikePlanet.com for this video of the 2000 Daytona 200 pre-race show.  Dean's been around the biz for what seems like forever (I can say that being around as a fan for what seems like forever), and has gone to the trouble of archiving this footage (and many others) from the true glory days of AMA Superbike Championship Series racing.  Thanks for all the hard work man, it's definitely appreciated!

Now kick back with your Saturday coffee--or other beverage of choice--and enjoy the exciting footage of  the pre-race show from the new millennium's first running of the classic Daytona 200.  And enjoy!

Chet Burks Productions Working on TV Package for AMA Pro Road Racing for 2013 Season-See What Roadracing World Has to Say

Two of the most-heralded riders in the history of the AMA Superbike Championship Series go at it again during race two of the Wiseco Superbike 100 Doubleheader at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in July '04.  Miguel Duhamel can be seen looking over his shoulder as he rolls into the last right-hander before the quick left onto the front straight on the #17 American Honda/Shoei/Joe Rocket/Dunlop-sponsored CBR1000RR while leading Mat Mladin on the #1 Yoshimura American Suzuki/Motorex/Dunlop/VP Fuel-backed GSX-R1000.  Mladin would go on to pass his French Canadian rival to win the race and would clinch his fifth of seven AMA Superbike Championships at the end of the season.

According to John Ulrich and his people at Roadracing World.com, the man behind the majority of motorcycle road racing television coverage in the United States in the last 15+ years and his company are working on putting together another television package to showcase the great racing in the Geico Motorcycle AMA Pro Road Racing Series for the 2013 season.  With the recent news that SpeedTV as we know it may be going away, Chet Burks Productions appears to be working with some of the other sports networks on your favorite satellite or cable provider.  It has been speculated that Speed will most likely get swallowed up by it's Fox flagship and rolled over into another version of Fox Sports for several months now, something along the lines of what has happened with NBC Sports Network, formerly Versus.

Burks talked with Roadracing World founder and Team Hammer/M4 Suzuki team owner John Ulrich about how things are going in putting things together for next season.  Read more below and a big thanks to John Ulrich and Roadracing World.com on this update about a TV package for the 2013 Geico Motorcycle AMA Pro Road Racing season:

http://roadracingworld.com/news/article/?article=50351

AMA Road Racing: Cycle News.com's Larry Lawrence Catches Up with Former Yoshimura Suzuki Racer Tommy Lynch

Tommy Lynch's #30 Yoshimura Suzuki/Motul/AGV/Michelin-sponsored GSX-R750 sits in the team's paddock area at Road America during the Coca-Cola Super Cycle Classic Weekend in June 1991.  Lynch was an up-and-coming rider in the AMA Pro Road Racing ranks having been with the Yoshimura squad since the '89 AMA 750 Supersport season, and was ultimately offered a position on their AMA Superbike team for the '91 season.

In his first season in the premier road racing class in the United States, the California resident and the soon-to-be powerhouse factory Suzuki squad struggled, as the Vance & Hines Yamaha two-up of Jamie James and eventual '91 AMA Superbike Champion Thomas Stevens all but ruled the class during the '91 season.  In the final at Elkhart Lake from which the above shot was taken, Lynch struggled to an 8th-place finish behind race winner James and runner-up Stevens, with a stacked field close behind with riders including Rich Arnaiz, Rueben McMurter and Tom Kipp finishing ahead of the #30 machine that weekend.

It's hard to even imagine using the term 'struggled' along with the name Yoshimura Suzuki in the same sentence, but it would be some seven seasons later when the team would start to become the powerhouse that they are now known for.  With the hiring of eventual 7-Time AMA Superbike Champion Mat Mladin in '97 and eventual 3-Time Champ Ben Spies in the early '00s, the team quickly transformed into the ultimate fighting machine they were from the '98 season until Mladin's last championship winning season in '09. 

And Lynch was no slouch, going on to win the '92 and '93 AMA Endurance Championship.  See more on that achievement below.

The Holland Oil Camel Super Cycle Weekend presented by Dunlop Tire at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in August '93 hosted the AMA Pro Road Racing series again for another fine weekend just outside the small town of Lexington, Ohio.  Long before the days of running only four classes in the series, the typical enthusiast would show up at the track with a full slate of racing in not only the premier Superbike class, but also the 600 & 750 Supersport classes, the 250GP class, the H-D Twin Sports class, and the AMA EBC Endurance Championship Series class.

Two Brothers Racing was one of the big teams in the endurance series in those days, fielding an almost superbike-spec Honda CBR900RR in the class.  With riders Tommy Lynch (above rolling out for the show on the #21 Two Brothers Racing/American Honda Motor Co/Bridgestone/AGV-sponsored mount), team co-owner Kevin Erion (soon to be of TBR and Erion Racing fame) and noted motojournalist and go-fast guy Nick Ienatsch, the Two Brothers Honda team won the '93 AMA EBC Endurance Championship, the year after Lynch had captured his first crown while riding for the Fastline Racing team.

You can catch up with what Tommy Lynch is doing now below, thanks to Cycle News.com's Larry Lawrence, and hear what he has to say about the '93 Championship-winning Two Brothers Racing Honda CBR900RR as shown above.


Again a big thanks goes out to my buddy and Cycle News.com's Larry Lawrence as he profiles former AMA Superbike contender and '92-'93 AMA EBC Endurance Champion Tommy Lynch, one of a long line of fine talent that once graced the saddle of a Yoshimura Suzuki AMA Superbike and who also won the '93 AMA Endurance Championship while riding for the Two Brothers Racing Honda team. 

Check out LL's article here in his always bitchin' 'Archives' column in this week's issue of Cycle News:

http://cyclenews.coverleaf.com/cyclenews/20121120#pg104

AMA Road Racing: Cycle News & Larry Lawrence Talk About Former Racer Larry Schwarzbach's Rise to Fame & Tragic Loss of Life

Former racer and Vance & Hines teamster Larry Schwarzbach is shown on the #7 Vance & Hines/Dunlop/Ohlins/Bell-sponsored FZR600 Yamaha on the starting grid for the AMA 600 SuperSport Series race at the Camel Super Cycle Weekend presented by Dunlop at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course on August 2, 1992, accompanied by crew chief Steve Johnson and another member of the V&H squad.

Schwarzbach would go on to win what would be his first-ever race in the support series event at the Lexington, OH. track, to the delight of the fans and even competitors including the late Randy Renfrow (2nd-place finish) and Tom Kipp (3rd-place finish and eventual '92 600SS Champion.)  He was signed as a team mate to Louisiana's own and '89 AMA Superbike Champion Jamie James, who was in his second year with the Yamaha factory-supported team, to contest the 600SS series as a signee to the team for the '91 season and in '92 also started competing alongside James in the AMA Superbike class.  After former team mate and '91 AMA Superbike Champion Thomas Stevens moved to the Muzzy Kawasaki team at the end of the '91 season, Schwarzbach was moved up to the #2 seat of the #64 Vance & Hines superbike rocket as a full time competitor in the premier class early in the '92 season.

Unfortunately, just a few short hours after this shot was taken, the Texas resident and likeable rider was involved in a crash during the running of the AMA Superbike Championship final in which he was tragically injured when he was hit from behind after trying to regain control of the bike coming out of Mid-Ohio's last corner onto the front straightaway while battling just out of the top-5.  He succumbed to his injuries just shy of two days later after being taken off of life support and never regaining consciousness.

The up-and-coming rider, who had worked his way out of the WERA ranks and into the bigs of AMA Pro Road Racing, was without a doubt one of the future stars of the series who will be remembered for his ability to adapt and his likeable nature, and the tragic loss of life taken by what he loved doing at too young of an age.  And I for one will remember him for his celebratory lap and smile on the podium after having taken that first and only win at Mid-Ohio in what surely could have been the first of many to come.

Check out the full story below, thanks to my good friend Larry Lawrence, for this in depth article about the life and times of former racer Larry Schwarzbach, the former Vance & Hines teamster who several hours after taking his breakout win in the AMA 600 SuperSport Series race at Mid-Ohio in August '92 was tragically injured and resultingly died as a result of his injuries just two days later after competing in the AMA Superbike Championship Series race alongside team mate Jamie James:

http://cyclenews.coverleaf.com/cyclenews/20120828?#pg65