{"id":34419,"date":"2022-01-07T16:16:02","date_gmt":"2022-01-07T16:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.motoamerica.com\/?p=34419"},"modified":"2022-02-22T23:15:15","modified_gmt":"2022-02-22T23:15:15","slug":"back-to-the-banking-a-return-to-daytona-part-8-2004-2005","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.motoamerica.com\/back-to-the-banking-a-return-to-daytona-part-8-2004-2005\/","title":{"rendered":"Back To The Banking, A Return To Daytona: Part 8, 2004-2005"},"content":{"rendered":"
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2004 Daytona 200 winner Mat Mladin is flanked by third-place finisher Miguel Duhamel (left) and runner-up Jake Zemke (right).<\/figcaption><\/figure>

With the news that MotoAmerica is headed to Daytona International Speedway in March of 2022 for the Daytona 200, we decided the perfect way to build excitement for the event would be to start digging through the history books and memory banks. Since Paul Carruthers is literally as old as the Speedway itself and covered almost 30 Daytona 200s as a journalist while working at Cycle News, it was a no-brainer that it would be him who would take on the task of trying to recall the good and the bad. And since we are the home of the AMA Superbike Series, we figured we\u2019d have him start his look back with the 1985 Daytona 200 \u2013 the first of the 200s to feature Superbikes \u2013 and go from there. This week, we focus on the 2004 and 2005 Daytona 200s.<\/em><\/p>

2004<\/strong><\/p>

Winner: <\/strong>Mat Mladin, Suzuki GSX-R1000<\/strong><\/p>

For Australian Mat Mladin, the Daytona 200 didn\u2019t mean as much as it did to his American rivals, and he wasn\u2019t against saying exactly that. What did mean a lot to the Yoshimura Suzuki rider was winning AMA Superbike Championships and he knew that although the title wasn\u2019t won at Daytona, it certainly could be lost there. Thus, rider and team went into the race with a plan and in 2004 the plan worked to perfection with Mladin winning his third Daytona 200.<\/p>

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