Carr almost made it look too easy, playing a waiting game until the final eight laps, then setting the pace at the front until the inevitable chess match of the final corners. Michigan native Kevin Atherton provided the challenge, but Carr used all of his Springfield knowledge to make a clever move in the final corner, staying low to the guardrail in the middle of turns three and four, then veering towards the outside wall on the exit to block Atherton's outside charge cleanly and lead the draft to the stripe.

Rich King pulled a similar move to best Carr three years ago here to win his first-ever mile race, and Carr stored that one in the memory banks, pulling it out of his bag of race-strategy tricks to prevail once again. The victory put Carr into the point lead for the first time in 2002.

"Yeah, I guess we were the favorite - although at Springfield, anything can happen. You catch yourself off-guard or out-of-line at the wrong time, and your chances of winning diminish pretty quickly.

"We got in touch with the leaders fairly early in the race. The first lap I ever led was about lap ten. I just kind of hung out for a while and jockeyed back and forth. I was still taking it easy on the tires. Then I started to press the pace about lap seventeen or so, just to try and define who it was going to be at the end - who I had to deal with - and then work the strategy out from there.

"It worked out pretty good. Kevin (Atherton) was able to go by me going into turn one, and I followed him down the back straightaway and felt like I had a 50-50 chance at winning the race if I was leading or following. I had one quite a few leading, so I took the lead and tried burning him through the corner, and I got a little sideways in the middle of three and four and killed a little bit of momentum. I knew that I had to come up with something to catch him a little off guard, and I remembered Rich King doing that to me before, and I was able to use that to my advantage, having that knowledge, and I pulled a similar move and shook their draft. I was able to win by a wheel or so at the line. "

It's got to be pretty tough to be doing all that thinking when you're going 100 mph through a corner...

"I guess outside looking in, it could be tough, but this is what we do. I've learned from a lot of people. I've been beat at a lot of races at Springfield, and I've gained a lot of valuable information. There aren't as many riders out there - with the exception of maybe Springsteen - who have seen all the different moves. You just got to come up with something different now and then, and that was one nobody had seen me do before, but I remembered it because somebody else pulled it on me. "

You have the point lead, now. How's that feel?

"It feels good. So far the year has played out a lot like last year. We didn't get off to a great start - after two races we're twelve points out of the lead - after the Springfield weekend, we're back in the point lead. We didn't quite get the point lead here a year ago, but we're a step ahead of that, so that's good."