By Ken Vreeke

Miguel Duhamel suffered serious injuries in a record-setting career, but he was already retired when he got shot in the head. That one really pissed him off. 

He was finishing a 75-mile ride on his road bicycle, about to post what surely would have been a top time on a popular cycling app, when the drive-by shooter’s pellet tore through his bicycle helmet and lodged in his skull. 

“I’m so mad,” said Miguel at the time. “I got a great time going and get shot in the head? Really? Who’s gonna believe an excuse like that?” 

Miguel has never stopped finding ways to win or finding humor in injuries that could have ended his career. Or life. That is Miguel’s superpower — an astonishing ability to overcome fear and battle back to the top of the sport. Without it, the Canadian-born son of legendary racer Yvon Duhamel would not have been the most accomplished motorcycle road racer in American history for decades.

Duhamel’s dynasty includes records entire teams would be proud of. In a 20-year professional career, including stints in MotoGP, winning a World Endurance Championship, and 14 years on the Honda factory team, Duhamel won the 1995 AMA Superbike championship, five AMA Supersport championships, two AMA Formula Xtreme titles, and the Daytona 200 a record-tying five times.

For perspective on his dominance, Duhamel took 40 Supersport class victories — the second-ranked rider had 13 wins. He held the record for most consecutive Superbike wins and set the all-time AMA win record across all classes early in his career — a record he held for more than 30 years. It would not be broken until 15 years after he retired. 

Ferocious and tenacious, Duhamel broke the same femur three times, one of them a double compound fracture so severe it nearly cost him his leg. His return to the track was the stuff of legends. On crutches with a rod holding his leg together, he showed up eight months after the accident for the 1999 season opener in Florida and won both the Supersport race and the fastest Daytona 200 in history. 

“I had no idea where I was in practice,” said Miguel. “At one point they kept telling me on my pit board that I was leading, but I thought they were just being supportive, like I was so far back they just wanted to encourage me to keep going.” 

Needing help to get on and off the bike, Duhamel lined up for the 200-mile Superbike race, a nearly two-hour sprint race on 200-mph motorcycles. 

In what’s been called the greatest victory in the history of the series, Duhamel won the 200 by 0.14 of a second. To make it even more heroic, his average speed of 113.469 mph beat a 15-year-old record set by the great Kenny Roberts, making it the fastest Daytona 200 ever. All from a guy who couldn’t walk to his bike. 

It was the greatest comeback this sport had ever seen or likely ever will.

Bottomless determination and courage drove Duhamel to the top, but his humor and the appreciation he showed for his fans kept him popular for decades. As he put it, “I like people, and I like to like people, but I also like to prove people wrong.” 

Ken Vreeke was a journalist at Motorcyclist, Cycle World and Cycle magazines for 15 years before starting an advertising agency that spearheaded Honda’s racing promotions for nearly 20 years. He considers Duhamel the most fearless racer of them all.