There are several Eddie Lawson Superbike wins from which legend has spawned. His May 22, 1982 Road America AMA Superbike win is one of them.

Lawson was the lead rider on the Kawasaki Superbike team then and in the middle of perhaps the most tumultuous season of his career, fighting off injury and Honda for the coveted US Superbike title.

In his heat race that May (all heat races then, no timed qualifying) Lawson suffered a massive crash which damaged his "A" S-1 Kawasaki KZ1000 and made his grid position essentially main street in nearby Plymouth. Lawson had to start from the 33rd position with former motocrosser turned roadracer Steve Wise (Honda) on pole.

The race was declared wet, although there wasn't rain falling when the green flag waved. There was, however, standing water on most of the track surface, hence the majority of the players went out on rain tires. Lawson said before the race that best case scenario he expected to finish fourth, according to Rob Muzzy. Once the race got underway Wise slipped off early, thus Roberto Pietri, Wes Cooley and Lawson's team-mate Wayne Rainey were dueling for the lead.

They never saw it coming. Lawson was the fastest man on the track and quickly moved through traffic, running in the top five in five laps time. He bolted past Pietri for the lead on lap six and simply left the rest in his wake. The race was shortened because of the wet surface and that was a good thing, as Martha Stewart would say, because Lawson would have made the grid look silly if the race had went longer than 12 laps. Lawson won by fifteen seconds. The Superbike podium was Lawson, F-1 winner Wes Cooley and Rainey.

In the accompanying "Formula Two" 250 race, Craig Morris (on a 350 air-cooled Yamaha) narrowly beat Cycle magazine's Mark Homchick, while third place was captured by future three-time Superbike champ Flyin' Fred Merkel.