Saturday's scheduled TT was postponed due to rain, so Sunday's Springfield Mile was the first test for the Grand National teams. The start of practice was delayed slightly due to a slowly drying track on a relatively cool May afternoon, but things progressed with Chris winning his heat race in a battle that Carr himself admitted was indicative of things to come as he was interviewed following the victory.In the main, Chris rode quickly to the front of the pack after a good start and never dropped further back than fourth on any pass across start-finish, eventually leading twelve of the 25 laps. A strong last lap prevented anyone from mounting the expected challenge in the draft, and Carr took his third career victory at the black, loamy oval.
Carr now trails Joe Kopp by a mere four points in the Grand National standings.
"Heat race on Sunday, had a good battle with Kevin Varnes, Nicky Hayden, and Kenny Coolbeth. We had a good battle going, and I was able to get the better of those guys. The track got quicker as things were going on, but we weren't too worried about that. The guys in the last heat race were smoking along pretty good.
"In the main event, I got a good start, and pretty much controlled the first half of the race. Settled in there for a while, just kind of ran third and fourth for several laps. Twenty-third lap, I went to the lead and we were able to get the better of the guys with the chess match at the end. Things just kind of played out the way I wanted them the last two laps, and I was able to get the win. We led into turn three and led it off four to win it at the line, and it just worked out good. It's a great feeling - the Springfield Mile is the Daytona 500 and Indy 500 all wrapped up into one. It was good for the Harley-Davidson of Sacramento race team to have a win there.
"Mike (Shattuck) was pretty pumped. He's had a lot of things going on - a lot of personal friends passing away the past couple of months. Armando Magerie (sp.), the original owner of H-D of Sacramento had passed away about a month ago, and he'd been kind of riding an emotional roller coaster. He told me today, as a matter of fact, that winning that race meant more than winning the Sacramento Mile in '99 when we won the Championship. To be able to take that ride around the track...a good friend of his - Leo Mueller - had passed away just this week, so he's had a lot of personal hardships in that respect the last month or so and that was special win for him, so he was pretty pumped."