Sunday afternoon at the luxurious Del Mar horse racing facility just outside of San Diego, CA opened with Chris only needing a good heat race to clinch the championship and the $50,000 bonus that comes with it in the last race of the wrenchead.com Formula USA National Dirt Track finale. Chris had qualified tenth the previous afternoon, still nursing that sore left knee and hoping that nothing major would get in the way of his hard-fought championship pursuit.In his heat race on Sunday, Chris began a battle with Bryan Bigelow and Nick Hayden, but, in a twist of fate similar to his near disaster at Peoria in August, a brake caliper stay broke, and Carr was without a rear brake once again. Riding with an wounded XR750 and a still-injured left knee, Chris nevertheless managed to transfer to the main and earn the necessary points to clinch the title before the main event rolled to the line.
No pauses for celebration, it's time to race. When the main lined up, Chris plotted a jump start tactic so he could be banished to the penalty line and ride his own race. An attempted jump from the second row resulted in an unexpected great start as the lights flashed green early, and Chris had to back off to clear his visor of debris from the Del Mar roost via row one. Chris regrouped, began a charge, and took tenth in the first leg, then circulated in the second leg for an eighth-place overall finish and a championship. Celebrations were then in order, and it was time to pay back all the hard work the team put forth all year long.
Everybody kind of expected you to win it, but it must feel good to have reached your goal.
"There's no doubt about it. When you come up through life and you set a goal for yourself, and you're able to achieve it, you have that warm and fuzzy feeling inside. After a few beers on Sunday night, we had a warm and fuzzy feeling going. It was pretty cool."
How did the race itself go for you?
"The race didn't go without incident for us. In the heat race, I had a great battle for second going with Bryan Bigelow and Nicky Hayden. About halfway through, the brake hanger arm just broke completely off the motorcycle, and we went through another half of a race with no rear brakes. Kenny Tolbert and Travis Smith worked real hard and got the bike fixed up for the main event - and we were able to finish fourth and clinch the championship in the heat race.
"In the main event, I tried jumping the line, just so they'd put me to the back and I could go out and ride my own pace. The track was really rough - one of the worst Del Mars I'd ever seen. I just wanted to go out, take care of my knee, and circulate. I tried jumping the start, and, lo and behold, the light went green. We got a great start, but I got coated (with roost) by the front row in the first corner. The lights went out, I reached up for a tear-off and let the field go by, and then decided to pick the guys off one at a time. We finished tenth in the first leg and started off the second leg nice and easy, waited for everybody to try and get their gaps set. I think I had passed Kevin Varnes off the start of the race, and Scott Parker had crashed and I hadn't moved up any further than that. So we were content to walk out of there without a bum leg and go on to race DuQuoin this weekend."
Have you thought about your plans for 2001 yet?
"Certainly we've got to sit down with all of our sponsors from the 2000 season and see how things look and kind of wait and see what the AMA and Formula USA have up their sleeve for schedules. I think that's going to determine a lot of things for a lot of people. Both series' are certainly viable series to run and hopefully we'll have an opportunity to race both. I guess the possibility of an AMA program and a Formula USA program could happen, but it all depends upon the conflicts of scheduling that we see on down the road."