AMA Road Racing: You Can Help '91 AMA Superbike Champion Thomas Stevens Find His Vance & Hines Yamaha

Thomas Stevens takes the checkered flag on his #11 Vance & Hines/Dunlop/Bell/Wiseco-sponsored Yamaha YZF750OW01, and wins the Wiseco Superbike 100 at the Mid Ohio Sports Car Course in August 1991.  Stevens led Miguel Duhamel on the #97 Camel Commonwealth Honda RC30 home, followed by Tom Kipp on his #16 Wiseco Yamaha OW for the main event win as part of the AMA Superbike Championship Series stop at the Camel Super Cycle Weekend in Lexington, OH.

After seeing team mate Jamie James on the #2 V&H Yamaha crash out of an early lead to bring out a red flag, Stevens used the re-start to his advantage, as well as the attrition of others in the field, to earn his first and only premier class win, and spring boarding him to the '91 AMA Superbike Championship.  With only 8 or 9 events on the '91 calendar, Stevens rode a solid and consistent year to win the grand prize.

After having ridden for the Vance & Hines team for two seasons, Stevens took the #1 plate to Muzzy Kawasaki for the '92 season, as a team mate to Scott Russell.  He returned to ride for the Vance & Hines team in late '96/early '97 to ride the team's Ducatis when they took over the running of the Italian marque in the AMA Superbike Championship Series, and rode for them through the '98 season.

The former champ is apparently on the lookout for his Mid Ohio and championship-winning machine, and would like to buy the bike.  Check it out below and maybe you can be the one to help the former champ out!
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Dean Adams has this great story about '91 AMA Superbike Champion Thomas Stevens' quest to find his championship winning Vance & Hines Yamaha YZF750OW01 over at his SuperBikePlanet.com site.  It has some interesting info on the machine and some more background on it, as well.

Maybe you can be the one to help out a great former champ find a piece of the missing puzzle! 

(Should you know or come across the whereabouts of this historical machine, you can e-mail me here at stuman714@yahoo.com and I will see to it that the info gets passed on to Dean so he can contact Thomas.)

http://www.superbikeplanet.com/2011/Aug/11081611bikemissing.htm
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AMA Road Racing: Read About Thomas Stevens' 1st Win in AMA Road Racing in Larry Lawrence's Archives on Cycle News.com

Thomas Stevens wrestles the #7 Vance & Hines/Parts Unlimited/Dunlop/SBS-sponsored Ducati 916 through turn 6 at the Mid Ohio Sports Car Course round of the AMA Superbike Championship Series in July 1998.  The '91 AMA Superbike Champion won his one and only AMA Superbike race at the track in August of '91, and that win, along with his consistent finishes throughout the eight-round season, would springboard him to his championship.  Stevens won his championship while also riding for the Vance & Hines team, but when the team fielded YZF-750 Yamahas, and was team mates in those days with '90 Daytona 200 winner Dave Sadowski and '89 AMA Superbike Champion Jamie James.

Stevens left the high-profile V&H Yamaha team after the end of the '91 season, taking the #1 plate with him to the Muzzy Kawasaki team, as a team mate to future AMA and World Superbike Champion Scott Russell.  After riding for the Yoshimura Suzuki team in the '93-'95 seasons, Stevens found himself riding for the Kinko's Kawasaki team in AMA 600 and 750 Supersport competition during the '96 season, and parlayed his success with the team to a return to the AMA Superbike Championship Series and to Vance & Hines for the '97-'98 seasons, the team's first in running the Ducati franchise in AMA Pro Road Racing.  In '98 the team also brought in new recruit, Australian rider Anthony Gobert, to ride alongside Stevens.
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One of the all-time greats in AMA Superbike Championship Series racing history, Thomas Stevens, is profiled in this week's 'Archives' column by Larry Lawrence, over at Cycle News.com.  The '91 AMA Superbike Champion started out riding endurance racing in the WERA series, and took his first AMA Road Racing win in one of the most popular road racing series in America back in the late '80s. 

Larry has a great look back on the history of AMA Road Racing and the stars who have made it what it is over the years, in this week's 'Archives' column, which you can find here.  Thanks LL and CN for this step back in time!

http://cyclenews.coverleaf.com/cyclenews/20110621#pg124
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We're Just Going to Stand Around to View the Good Stuff!

I wanted to get your attention to this great series of shots that Dean Adams and his crew
over at www.superbikeplanet.com put up today, so I threw in a shot of '91 AMA Superbike
Champion Thomas Stevens doing a wicked stand up at Mid Ohio in '97 on the Vance and
Hines Ducati.
Dean and company put up the following post of some super road racing stuff from the late '60s
to the mid '70s. Absolutely bitchin stuff as seen through the lens of one Mr. Allen Engel, who
took them all back in the day. Wonderful stuff, and if you have about 10-15 minutes to want
to re-live or re-visit or re-dream about those thrilling days of yesteryear, well, other then
Stu's Shots, this is the place to do it:


http://www.superbikeplanet.com/2009/Dec/091209engelrecap.htm


Again, a major tip of the helmet to Allen Engel for all of these wonderful shots, and we will be
on the look out for more of this in the future from Dean and his crew at www.superbikeplanet.com. Thanks again to them and to you for stopping by. We appreciate
your patronage and that you are willing to spend your time checking our stuff out. Enjoy!