A snip of the contents page of American Roadracing in 1991. This is actually how many fans learned that DuHamel had won Daytona and 34 wore a camo helmet in the USGP. image

It would seem to be abundantly clear that the AMA Superbike series will offer a (Daytona) 600 Superbike class in 2009. 600cc Superbikes: who would have ever thought this would one day happen?

Well, in a small and generally clueless way, me.

Oh yeah. I've been doing this writing gig for a while. Not quite as long as some of the scribe-o-saurs in the US Superbike media room, but long enough. Some of my first published stories, if they were human, could now legally drink in many northern states.

Funny the mention of alcohol as that ties in to the original 600 Superbike theme. For a very brief period after Daytona '91, Yamaha US sort of asked around if anyone had any interest in making the Superbike class limited to 600cc. It was one of those crazy ideas you might mention to your workmates after a three-drink lunch; one that seemed to have some merit--at the time--but once the vodka wore off you swore off the zany brain chirp and never mentioned it again.

Back then, I needed even less provocation to write a story than I do now. In '91 a casually-mentioned anecdote of less than twenty words would see me literally run to my word processor to fire off 1000 words on it then shoot it to any magazine that would tolerate my existence. I followed that word-rush with a second run to my fax machine to, in turn, make the magazine's fax machine puke thermal paper until the rolls were dry. Next, a few (like twenty) follow-up phone calls were in order. A mere hint of a request for a re-write had me trotting back at the word processor again, only too happy to re-write it, and in turn happily doubling the word count, and then starting the insane writing/faxing/calling process over again. Yeah, paying yourself with your own enthusiasm, like Kevin Cameron says.

This time good guy Merrill Vanderslice had put the seed on my word spreader by mentioning that Yamaha US had asked him to consider a 600 Superbike class. When Merrill, who I would later become good friends with, told me about it, I ran with that story as far and fast as I could, stringing together very loose facts, a few quotes and, well, little else, to build a story that inferred 600 Superbikes were coming.

My 600 Superbike story published in the old American Roadracing magazine in '91. Please note that nearly every source felt 600 Superbike was a crazy idea. Did that stop me from writing this piece? Hell no. image

Who knew it would take seventeen years to come true?

One could make the argument that once Formula Extreme and the Daytona 200 went to 600s that we had 600 Superbikes in everything but the name of the class. That'll come next year.

The early 1990s were a crazy time in US and international racing. World Superbike sprang to life and success nearly overnight; the new series was so popular that they regularly sent twenty-odd bikes home after final qualifying. At the same time, Grand Prix was almost being declared dead because of meager 500 grids, and four-stroke 600s were being considered for the top GP class (hmmm). 600s seemed like a good idea to somebody, it seems.

No, that old dog, Boyce, dismissed the story based on the fact, he said, that it was written by "some guy in Minnesota".