October 22, 2004
Virginia - Another day, another record-setting performance. That would, in a nutshell, describe Miguel Duhamel’s 2004 AMA Superbike series-ending — and history-making — weekend at Alton’s Virginia International Speedway. Only in this case, the factory Honda star achieved what no other racer has ever done: win three AMA professional road races in one day. (The VIR round, originally slated for September 17-19, had been cancelled due to adverse conditions from Hurricane Ivan.) 32 wins ties Duhamel for the most wins in AMA history.
“Everything worked out really well,” said Duhamel afterward. “Yeah, today was really good and everything, but you’ve still got to be humble. You still have to be able to say you were lucky.”
Lucky or not, Duhamel was at the top of his game from the start, and he let everyone know it by wresting the Superbike pole position from Suzuki’s Mat Mladin with a smoking last-lap qualifying flyer that also set a new VIR track record of 1:24.404.
From there it was simply vintage Duhamel as he and his #17 CBR1000RR Honda snagged the win in Superbike race one with a beautiful last-lap pass on Aaron Yates, edging the Suzuki rider by a scant 0.126 second at the line. Duhamel’s teammate Ben Bostrom was third.
The French-Canadian’s second Superbike victory came in less dramatic, though no less commanding, fashion, with Duhamel dominating after making his way into the lead on lap 10 (of 28) and taking off to win by more than seven seconds in front of Yates. Bostrom again finished third.
The third feather in Duhamel’s VIR cap came in the AMA Formula Xtreme finale, a series he’s pretty much owned since Daytona’s round one in March. Leading from almost turn one on the first lap, the victory was his eighth of the 11-round series and bode very well for Honda going into next year’s Daytona 200 — the first time the season-opening classic will be run on FX machinery. As the reformatted series wrapped its inaugural season, Honda CBR600RRs tallied a perfect 11-for-11 (Jake Zemke and Ben Bostrom collected the other three wins.)
