With Kawasaki and Yamaha sitting on the sidelines this year, the AMA Superbike championship turned into a Mat Mladin parade. Honda and Ducati certainly have plans to be more competitive next year, and to take more wins away from Mladin and Suzuki. Nevertheless, the AMA Superbike series needs more players. Enter Kawasaki and the brothers Hayden, Tommy and Roger Lee. With Kawasaki’s announcement last week that Tommy and Roger Lee Hayden will each compete in the AMA Superbike series aboard factory Kawasaki ZX-10Rs (a model that was completely redesigned for 2006), things are certainly getting more interesting . . . and fans have a lot more to look forward to with AMA Superbike racing for 2006.
Tommy Hayden is a two-time National champ, and Roger Lee is probably the most talented young roadracer in the United States at this point. With the tweaks to the 2006 ZX-10R designed to improve its performance as a superbike racer, both in WSB and here in the States, these two riders should have some decent machinery underneath them, and we could see a much more wide open race for the championship in 2006 (thank goodness!).
