Yvon Duhamel

We've lost three great motorcycle racers in the last nine months that I've had the pleasure and good fortune to know: Peter Williams last December; Dick Mann in April; and Yvon Duhamel a week ago. Here are some memories of Yvon: In the early 70's, probably when I was a lowly novice ’73 or ’74, I was walking through the paddock at Bryar M/S Pk during the Loudon National.  I saw Yvon talking into the open trunk of his Caddie (in French, of course).  This seemed curious, so I hung out a bit, just watching.  After a minute or so, he pulled out a turtle that had YD and #17 stickers on its shell. Yvon made brum, brum noises and sort of launched the turtle like he was launching a wind up toy, and the turtle slowly lumbered around.  It may have been at Road Atlanta many years later (probably 1987), when AHRMA had a support race at the AMA National, that I first talked to Yvon.  He was there supporting Miguel who, if I remember correctly, was racing an Aprilla in the Lightweight 250 class.  I saw Yvon looking over some of the AHRMA vintage bikes.  I asked him if he had any interest in racing a vintage bike and he was pretty non-committal.  I dragged him around to check out the Team Obsolete G-50 Matchless, and he lit up and was a lot more receptive to the idea.  I told him of witnessing the scene of him and the turtle at Loudon and he was amazed that anyone knew of it.  He told me that he had rescued the turtle when he saw it trying to cross the race track and he adopted it as a mascot.  Apparently, it didn't survive it's first winter in Montreal. I remember seeing Yvon race an H2R(?) at Daytona in 1976 after he had injured his knee in Jan. racing snow mobiles. Near then end of the 200, the drive chain came off the rear sprocket and he pulled off very close to where I was spectating at the ‘dog leg’. He carefully got off the bike and clearly had to hold on to the bike not just to keep it upright, but to keep himself upright, as his leg wasn’t strong. He worked his way back to the rear sprocket, lifted the chain on it, and inched the bike backward to feed the chain over the sprocket. By this time, the race had ended and Ron Pierce stopped to offer Yvon a ride back. Yvon waved him off and, with great difficulty, bump started the bike and rode it back. Yvon was one of the most fun loving people I have known.  He was alway joking around--he never let up.  In ’91 or ’92 at little Talladega, when it was the warmup race for AHRMA Daytona, he was to race the Team Obsolete BSA triple.  There was a problem with the bike in practice and it couldn't race, so we put him on a AJS 7R (350) in the 500 Premiere race.  I was racing T/O's best G-50 (500) in the race and Yvon beat me, naturally.  I passed him on the cool off lap and stuck out my right leg to indicate that I was entering the pits.  Yvon pulled up along side me and grabbed my ankle and lifted it up over my head as we were rolling in 'pit in'. My, did he love to race.  He raced the BSA triple at Cadwell Park 1998 in one of T/O's Transatlantic Match races.  He was having a great scrap with Malcolme Tunstall, who was on his Ducati.  On the last lap, Yvon was ahead with Malcolme right on his heals as they crested 'the Mountain'.  Then, on the following right, Yvon ran off the track and Malcolme followed him.  They both recovered and went out of sight towards Barn Corner and we were all focused on who would be ahead when they came back into view at the finish line.  It was Malcolme with Yvon a short way back.  When they got back to the pits, we learned why Yvon had ridden off the track: his right clip-on had broken off.  But did Yvon retire?  Hell no.  He stuffed the front brake lever down in the fairing with the twist grip on the other side so he'd have something to twist against and finished the race (and cool off lap) like that. Such a warm, friendly, funny guy and a fierce competitor.  My life was certainly enriched knowing him.