When Mat Mladin and the Yoshimura Suzuki Team won three straight Superbike titles, it was on a 750 that wasn’t necessarily the best bike in the paddock. Now, Suzuki has a huge head start over the other manufacturers campaigning a lightly-modified GSX-R1000 that is trouncing the competition in Superbike racing, including Honda’s trio of talented riders aboard the proven RC51 v-twin.
Mladin and Suzuki are proving that the other manufacturers will have to arrive at the starting grid next year with four-cylinder machines to be competitive. Both Kawasaki and Honda will have all-new production bikes to work with (and build a race bike from), while Yamaha’s R-1 remains a bit of a mystery (will the production machine be tweaked for racing in 2004?).
Any way you look at it, the competition will be playing catch up for a while, and Suzuki could potentially dominate the next few seasons of AMA Superbike racing.
