Yvon Duhamel

Infobox NASCAR driver
Name = Yvon Duhamel
Birthdate = birth date and age|1939|10|17
Birthplace = flagicon|CAN Montreal, Quebec
Best_Cup_Pos = 109th
Cup_Wins = 0
Cup_Top_Tens = 1
Cup_Poles = 0
First_Cup_Race = 1973 Gwyn Staley 400 (North Wilkesboro)
First_Cup_Win = None
Last_Cup_Win = None
Last_Cup_Race = 1973 Gwyn Staley 400 (North Wilkesboro)
Awards = 1970 World Championship Snowmobile Derby winner
Years Active = 1
Total Cup Races = 1

Yvon Duhamel (born October 17, 1939 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada) is a French-Canadian professional motorcycle racer and father to current AMA Superbike roadracer Miguel Duhamel. He won the World Championship Snowmobile Derby in 1970. He was also a very active ice racer, using hockey shin pads to allow him to lean over farther, scraping his knee on the ice rather than merely sliding his foot as did speedway racers.

Duhamel is best remembered as a member of the Kawasaki factory racing team during the 1970s along with team-mates Gary Nixon and Art Baumann. He made famous the #17 on the neon green factory Kawasaki, a number now honoured by his son Miguel.

Following in the footsteps of motorcycle legends Joe Weatherly and Paul Goldsmith, Duhamel raced a NASCAR Winston Cup race at the North Wilkesboro Speedway in 1973, finishing tenth for Junie Donlavey in the #90 Truxmore Ford after starting 15th, completing 381 laps of the 400-lap Gwyn Staley 400 cite news | url=http://www.racing-reference.info/driver?id=duhamyv01 | title=Yvon Duhamel Career Statistics | publisher=Racing-Reference.info | accessdate=2007-11-08] .

Never officially retired, Duhamel raced the 24-Hour World Championship in 1988 with his sons Miguel and Mario and continues to race in the Vintage series to this day. He is still open to offers of racing the Daytona 200. Duhamel was inducted into both the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame and the AMA Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 1999 cite news | url=http://www.motorcyclemuseum.org/halloffame/hofbiopage.asp?id=162 | title=Motorcycle Hall of Fame:Yvon Duhamel | publisher=Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum | accessdate=2008-03-04] .

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