Honda’s Last American Superbike Win

• Larry Lawrence
Jake Zemke racing the factory Honda in 2006, the last year Honda won an AMA Superbike race. Honda’s current winless streak is the longest it’s endured in the history of AMA Superbike racing. (Larry Lawrence photo)

Jake Zemke racing the factory Honda in 2006, the last year Honda won an AMA Superbike race. Honda’s current winless streak is the longest it’s endured in the history of AMA Superbike racing. (Larry Lawrence photo)

Thanks to riders like Freddie Spencer, Mike Baldwin, Fred Merkel and Wayne Rainey in the 1980s and primarily Miguel Duhamel in the 1990s, Honda went into the 2000s with a firm lead in American (AMA) Superbike Wins by Manufacturer. But then came the 2000s and a stunning run by Suzuki with Mat Mladin and Ben Spies and quickly Suzuki swept past Honda for all-time AMA Superbike wins supremacy.

It’s hard to believe now, but once dominant Honda is seven years since its last AMA Superbike victory. Big H scored its last win at Miller Motorsports Park, in Toole, Utah, in June of 2006 with Jake Zemke scoring the upset that day over Yoshimura Suzuki’s Mat Mladin and Ben Spies. Zemke’s victory in Utah ended a then two-year drought for Honda in America’s premier road racing class and broke a 14-race win streak for Suzuki.This current drought is the longest span in AMA Superbike history without a win for Honda. The previous record for a gap between Honda wins came in at just under three years – from May of 1992 when Freddie Spencer won at Texas World, to April of 1995 when Mike Hale won Pomona.

There is just one Honda currently racing regualrly in the series in 2013, the M4/Broaster Chicken Honda CBR1000RR ridden by veteran Chris Ulrich. Ulrich winning an AMA Superbike race this year seems a remote possibilty, but at least there’s a chance, however slim, for Honda to get back in the AMA Superbike win column.