Larry Lawrence | October 22, 2019
Archives: Suzuki vs Honda Daytona Superbike Battle
Four the first four years of its existence, AMA Superbike racing rolled along nicely as a fairly low-key support class at AMA Road Race Nationals. In order of importance it was probably third behind both the Formula One and Formula 2 (250 Grand Prix) classes. But then Honda entered the Superbike fray in 1980 and upped the ante. Suddenly the headlines and win ads were a lot bigger and the fans were definitely taking notice. Almost overnight Superbike began to rival, some would even argue surpass, the popularity of the main F1 class.
Archives: Suzuki vs Honda Daytona Superbike Battle
The biggest AMA road race event of the year at that time was Daytona and Bike Week’s Bell Superbike 100 was quickly gaining in importance. It was a race that Honda badly wanted to win. In 1980 it came close in the factory’s AMA Superbike debut. Honda riders Freddie Spencer and Ron Pierce both finished on the podium that year, but standing on the top rung of the podium was rapidly rising New Zealand road racer Graeme Crosby. “Croz” was on top of the world in March of 1980. He’d just won the Daytona Superbike race and had just signed on as a factory rider for Suzuki in the 500cc Motorcycle Grand Prix World Championship.
By 1981, Honda had a year of development and came to Daytona much more prepared than they’d been a year earlier. Freddie Spencer was again Honda’s lead rider and favored by many to win the ’81 Bell Superbike 100. Honda had a strong squad for season opener. Spencer was backed up by Mike Spencer (no relation) and factory support rider Roberto Pietri.
Yoshimura Suzuki was back with defending AMA Superbike Champion Wes Cooley and Crosby, who was so talented that he scored a 500cc GP podium in rookie 1980 season. Croz came back again to try to defend his 1980 Daytona Superbike victory.
Also expected to contend for the win in that year’s race was Kawasaki’s Eddie Lawson, who battled Cooley tooth and nail in the highly-contentious ’80 AMA Superbike Series. Then there was a young up-and-coming Aussie named Wayne Gardner, who was racing a potent Moriwaki Kawasaki and qualified fifth, just behind Lawson. Other riders to watch included, Lawson’s Kawasaki factory teammate David Emde, Racecrafters Kawasaki’s Harry Klinzmann and Kawasaki Canada’s Lang Hindle, who would go on to win the Canadian Superbike Championship later that season.
The 100-mile race got underway with the two Yoshimura Suzukis of Cooley and Crosby, along with Spencer on his factory Honda, rocketing to the front. All three shared time leading. The pace was intense with the trio lapping as quickly as the 2:06 range. That was faster than anyone qualified in the Formula One class other than Kenny Roberts and Dale Singleton!
Spencer’s race was decided during his pit stop when his quick refuel can spilled gas on his hot motor and ignited a fire. Spencer jumped off the flaming Honda and it tumbled over. Fortunately, the crew was on top of the situation and quickly put the fire out with an extinguisher. Spencer hopped back on the bike, but the fire cost him precious time and, as he found out once back on the track, it slightly melted his bike’s throttle cable causing it to intermittently stick. He would make a valiant effort to get back contention in the second half of the race, but the Suzukis were simply too fast.
Yoshimura almost had a pit stop disaster of their own. Graeme and Cooley came in at the same time, nose to tail. Croz nailed the brakes diving into his pit stall. Cooley was caught off guard and was forced to make a quick flick around his teammate, then a hard left back into his pit, narrowly avoiding a collision. Croz led coming in, but Cooley was just ahead as the duo exited the pits together.
There was an additional moment of drama as Lawson took the lead when the Suzuki pair pitted and he just kept circulating. Some speculated the Kawasaki squad was going for a no-pit strategy by having Lawson short-shift and conserve fuel. And who knows? Kawasaki may have had a few tricks up their sleeve with some creative methods of carrying additional fuel. A few years earlier they’d reportedly gotten inventive and put additional fuel in the headlight shell.
But as the Suzuki riders closed on him, Lawson seemed to slow even more. Turns out his Kawasaki’s engine was leaking oil and he was battling controlling the bike coming out of turns as it slid around on its own oil. He pitted, the crew looked at the leak, determined it was something they couldn’t fix quickly and sent him back out hoping he could limp home to the finish. But after a few more near high-sides, Lawson pulled in again and parked it behind the wall.
In the closing laps Cooley and Crosby were doing the slow-down dance, each one hoping the other would lead out of the chicane on the final lap.
“There at the end Graeme was playing the game I thought he’d play,” Cooley said. “He stayed behind me to try to slingshot past at the end.”
Cooley decided to try to make a break on the final lap and he wicked up the throttle early exiting the chicane onto the banking. The aggressive acceleration while still leaned over caused Cooley’s Suzuki to get into a big slide. It might have cost him the race, but Crosby did the exact thing a couple of dozen yards back and got into an even bigger slide. As the two came around the East Banking heading to the flag Crosby closed in, but he wasn’t quite close enough for the draft and Cooley took the victory by 7-10ths of a second.
“I wish I had those last couple of laps to do over,” Crosby said with a grin in Victory Lane.
Freddie Spencer came around in a lonely third ahead of Gardner and Mike Spencer rounding out the top five.
It was a great victory for Yoshiumra Suzuki sweeping first and second and at the same time a bitter loss for Honda.
The next year Honda finally got it right – in a big way – and would sweep the podium, but the 1981 Bell Superbike 100 belonged to Suzuki, a race that helped continue to strengthen the importance of AMA Superbike racing.