2006 AMA Superbike by G

[G.Irish]

TEAMS
Yoshimura Suzuki

They're the reigning champions and have won the last 3 championships in a row at the hand of Mat Mladin. The GSX-R1000 K5 is still the bike to beat, having won both the AMA and World Superbike championships while amassing many other wins around the world.

In preseason testing the Gixxer has been anywhere from .5 to a full second faster than the next fastest bike which has been the Ducati of Ben Bostrom on more than one occasion.

At this point the only way any of the other manufacturers are going to be able to unseat Suzuki is if they can mount a massive development effort over the course of the season. For come from behind championship wins, Honda probably has the best chance.

Ducati Austin

Ducati was the only other manufacturer to get wins last season with 3 coming from Eric Bostrom and 1 from former World Superbike Champion and Moto GP racer, Neil Hodgson. Eboz opted not to resign with Ducati and instead signed with Yamaha to run Superstock and Formula Xtreme. Don't ask why because I don't get it either.

Both Ben Bostrom and Neil Hodgson have extensive experience racing the Italian V-twins and I imagine both of them will see some success next season. Ben just came off a horrid season in WSBK with a privateer team and should be eager to get back to the business of being competitive. Indeed, during the first preseason tests he's been number 2 on the time sheets behind Mladin and Spies.

American Honda

Last season saw Honda riders Miguel Duhamel and Jake Zemke finish 5th and 11th in the championship respectively, a tough pill to swallow after finishing 2nd, 3rd, and 4th in 2004 (BBoz was the third rider).

The reason for the team's precipitous fall from grace was that 2005 was the first season the American Honda squad developed their bikes completely in house. In the past HRC (Honda Racing Corporation) headed up the development and leased the bikes and parts to the American Honda boys. <read the interview on VTEC.NET that I did to get more on the HRC/American Honda stuff: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://vtec.net/articles/view-article?article_id=422867&page_number=1">http://vtec.net/articles/view-article?a ... e_number=1</a><!-- m --> >

Towards the end of last season it seemed that the American Honda guys were finally getting their stride and they've picked up where they left off in the preseason. While not taking any fastest laps they are within podium range for sure.

A significant development for the American Honda team is that Duhamel and Zemke will not be contesting FX in addition to Superbike this season. They have instead opted to concentrate on Superbike, a smart move if you want to beat Mladin.

Team Kawasaki

For the last couple of years, 2 of the "big 4" motorcycle makers have been conspicuously absent from Superbike. Kawasaki, having received assurances that the Superbike rules will be stable for at least 3 years, has decided to remove themselves from the shame of wussing out of Superbike.

Right now the US Kawasaki Superbike team is the only factory Superbike team Kawasaki is running in the world (unless there's a Japanese SBK team I don't know about). This could very well point to them getting excellent support from the factory. True to form, the Hayden boys have been out to Japan to help develop the bikes and Kawasaki has even sent one of their test riders to the US to aid in the effort.

During preseason testing the Haydens started out posting the slowest of the factory rider times but now they are poking into the top five and even the top three. My prediction is that early in the season they will be around top five but by about midway they should be on the box and possibly could challenge for wins.