History of Victory! The story of the CBRs, from pole position to checkered flag. Including the inside story of their most famous victories.
Honda introduced the ground-breaking CB750K0 in 1969, and immediately went racing in America. The crown jewel at the time was the legendary Daytona 200, and that's exactly what Honda aimed for. The K0 was a radical machine: four cylinders inline, set transversely across the motorcycle's chassis. It won the event, and defined the formula for the dominant type of sportbike today, including both the CBR600RR and the CBR1000RR.
Honda's 600 Hurricane made its debut the same year the AMA introduced the 600 Supersport class. The two made a perfect match, with Honda's newly minted 600 sweeping to victory in all nine races. Doug Polen, the 600 Supersport class' first champion, won seven races in a row to set the class' first record. Introduced side-by-side with the CBR600F, the new Honda CBR1000F Hurricane rocked the literbike world. In the U.S., the Superbike class was limited to 750cc for four-cylinder machines. But this was the shape of what was soon to come: 1000cc Superbikes using inline-four engines.
Honda's second-generation 600 – the CBR600F2 – was successful right from the start. Just like its progenitor, the Hurricane, the F2 won all nine races in the series. Miguel Duhamel took the 600 Supersport class championship with seven victories, including five in a row.
Unleashed upon an unsuspecting industry in the spring of 1992, the most potent pure-performance Honda ever redefined sportbike performance overnight. Weighing in at an inconceivable 408 pounds, the original CBR®900RR put liter-class horsepower in a package that was 80 pounds lighter than its lightest rivals, and just two pounds heavier than Honda's own CBR600F2. From the twin-spar aluminum chassis to the 147-pound, 893cc 16-valve four-cylinder engine inside, every facet of the first CBR900RR was lighter than comparable sportbikes. The result: Suddenly, there were no comparable sport bikes.
History repeated itself once again. A new-generation Honda middleweight, the CBR600F3, totally dominated the 600 Supersport class and won the championship, Honda's fourth. Keeping with tradition, F3s swept the series, winning all 11 races. Class champ Miguel Duhamel scored his second 600 title with Honda, and started his historic streak of 10 straight race wins, with eight in a row in 1995 alone.
The CBR900RR was too big to compete in the AMA's Superbike class, but it just had to go racing, so it entered what came to be known as the AMA's Formula Xtreme series. Andrew Stroud won seven out of nine races to easily clinch the championship.
Honda-sponsored Erion Racing's Nicky Hayden won five races on his way to the 600 Supersport class title. CBR600F4 riders won six of the 12 races, including Daytona.
In 2004, the CBR1000RR made a startling reach into the future, drawing from Honda's world-dominating RC211V MotoGP racing program. The CBR1000RR was closely aligned with the RV211V's design philosophy and featured a lengthy swingarm and Unit Pro-Link rear suspension, compact engine, lightweight aluminum frame and a renewed emphasis on mass centralization. Add Programmed Dual Stage Fuel Injection and the innovative Honda Electronic Steering Damper (HESD), and it became easy to trace the DNA of the awesome RC211V throughout the very cellular structure of the new CBR1000RR.
A big year of changes in racing. Formula Xtreme was now the premier 600-class event, and it was also the class that would run in the Daytona 200. At Daytona, the CBR600RR dominated, with Miguel Duhamel easily winning the event. For the rest of the year, it was a contest between two Honda riders, Duhamel and Jake Zemke. They finished 1-2 in the class.
With a brand-new CBR1000RR ready for the track, Miguel Duhamel and former World Superbike champion Neil Hodgson were ready to add some more pages to the long, long list of CBR wins. And for the 600, Josh Hayes was ready to try for his third straight FX crown on Honda.