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!
