It’s difficult to imagine a more popular winner than the man who won the 1993 AMA Superbike race at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. That man was Dale Quarterley.

Quarterley was rewarded for 10 years of perseverance when he rode his Kawasaki to victory at Mid-Ohio in 1993. And it was almost 10 years to the day that a 22-year-old Quarterley made his AMA Superbike debut, riding a Kawasaki GPz750 to a fifth-place finish. Ironically, that first race was at Mid-Ohio. Ten years and a lot of tenacity later and the career-long privateer made good on a dream.

Only something as unlikely as Quarterley’s win could overshadow the crowning of a new AMA Superbike Champion, but it did. Quarterley shared his day with Fast By Ferracci’s Doug Polen, with the Texan wrapping up his first AMA Superbike title with a fourth-place finish after being slowed late in the race by a broken motor mount. Polen’s title was the first in the AMA Superbike Championship for Ducati.

Quarterley’s win was by no means a gimme. All the factory stars were flat out beaten by the New Englander.

Second place went to Vance & Hines Yamaha’s Jamie James, some 5.5 seconds behind Quarterley, and just in front of Camel Honda’s Mike Smith. Then came Polen, well clear of Yoshimura Suzuki’s Thomas Stevens and Vance & Hines Yamaha’s Colin Edwards.

“I was either going to crash or win it,” Quarterley said when talking about an early lap off-track excursion. “I never got out of it. I was going to the front, and there was nothing else to it.”

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