Britain's Neil Hodgson finished second behind Australian Mat Mladin in the opening race of the AMA Superbike Championship in Daytona.
Hodgson ended just over three seconds behind Mladin in his first AMA event.
Hodgson got away well alongside Aaron Yates before the Yoshimura Suzuki rider's team-mate Mladin took the lead after just over a lap.
On lap six Hodgson broke away from his rivals and was the only man to challenge Mladin.
But the 31-year-old admitted he was happy to finish on the podium as he found the pace of Mladin hard to catch at the tricky banked circuit.
"I'm glad to have gotten that one out of the way," admitted Hodgson.
"Everybody's got a little bit of testing planned and then we'll go to the next round.
"I'm really pleased. Last night when I was in bed if someone would have said, 'You'll finish second', I would have taken it.
"Unfortunately, Mat was just too quick. Everybody warned me, they said, 'Watch out for Mat, he'll go really quickly in the beginning'.
"And he did, so I got caught with my pants down.
"But I don't think I could have stayed with him anyway."
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