A quarter of a century ago, the biggest thing in AMA Superbike racing was the Big Kahuna Nationals, which was a three-event championship within the 2000 AMA Superbike Championship. For the first time in AMA history, the Road Atlanta, Mid-Ohio, and Road America rounds all featured Superbike doubleheaders.
The second-biggest thing in AMA Superbike racing back in 2000, and specifically at Road Atlanta, was the return of 1987-1989 AMA 250 Grand Prix Champion, 1990 FIM 250cc Grand Prix World Champion, and 1997 Superbike World Champion John Kocinski, who was aboard the number 46 Vance & Hines Ducati Superbike starting at Road Atlanta.
Kocinski took on a field of rivals that included Muzzy Kawasaki’s Doug Chandler and Yoshimura Suzuki’s Mat Mladin, who ironically were both former teammates of Kocinski on the 1993 Cagiva 500cc Grand Prix World Championship team.
But, while Kocinski’s return got the advance billing for the event, he wasn’t much of a factor in the race, nor the entire season, as it turns out. He finished seventh in race one and fourth in race two at Road Atlanta, seventh in the 2000 AMA Superbike final standings, and he really only made headlines that year at Road America, the final round of the Big Kahuna Nationals, when he made contact with his teammate Steve Rapp’s front brake lever and caused Rapp to crash while his Vance & Hines Ducati cartwheeled and tore itself to pieces in one of the most spectacular motorcycle crashes anyone had or has ever seen, even to this very day.
Miguel Duhamel, who won 1998’s Big Kahuna race one and was second in race two, was looking to reclaim his place on the podium at Road Atlanta in 2000. Duhamel’s teammate Nicky Hayden, who had won the AMA 600 SuperSport Championship in 1999 and finished second in the 2000 Daytona 200—edged out by a mere 11 one-thousandths of a second by Mladin—was also a strong contender.
So, too, were three-time AMA Superbike Champion Chandler and his Muzzy Kawasaki teammate Eric Bostrom, along with Yoshimura Suzuki’s Jason Pridmore.
Georgia natives competing in the Big Kahuna races at Road Atlanta included Scott Russell of Conyers and Pridmore’s Yoshimura Suzuki teammate Aaron Yates from Milledgeville.
Both Yamaha riders, Jamie Hacking, who was third in 1999’s Big Kahuna race one at Road Atlanta, and Nicky and Roger Hayden’s older brother Tommy also considered Road Atlanta to be their home track.
So, who won the 2000 Big Kahuna at Road Atlanta? Pridmore’s and Yates’s Yoshimura Suzuki teammate Mat Mladin, who was the defending AMA Superbike Champion and had finished third in 1999’s Big Kahuna race two, was victorious in both races that weekend on his way to the second of his seven AMA Superbike Championships.
