By 1988 things looked to be winding down for John Ashmead. Just three years earlier he was a regular on the AMA Superbike podium and even won the coveted Superbike race at Laguna that ran alongside what was then the de facto American GP where most of the American GP riders would trek back to Monterey to show up the American F1 riders. In 1988 his Honda VFR was now aged and he managed just a few top-five finishes (including the one pictured here at Road America). No one knew it at the time, but Ashmead had one more glorious encore left in him and that was the following March when he shocked the world by winning the Daytona 200 on this very bike.