A slow start to the day, the machine not cooperating and refusing to hook up, gave little indication to what was to come. Putting their collective heads down, Chris, Kenny Tolbert, and Travis Smith made the changes they needed to make and fought off handling problems to take a hard-earned second on the night. Most of the credit - and tuner Tolbert would likely agree - is due to Carr riding the wheels off the thing, not a shock setting or a tire groove pattern.
Chris leads Hagerstown winner Johnny Murphree by six points as the series takes a weekend off before heading to a new venue, Granite City, Illinois.
"Johnny Murphree was going really good, so was Kevin Atherton. I had dropped back to third - I had gotten the holeshot and both of them basically went by me - and I was able to sneak back by Atherton by the end of the four-lapper, so we figured we had a little work to do and went back to the pits and regrouped.
"In the heat race, I had Atherton along with Kevin Varnes and Joe Kopp, and early on I just went backwards. I got another good start and those guys ran around me the first few laps. I was running fourth and fading, and the red flag came about just past halfway point, and they reverted back a lap and I restarted in fourth.
"We didn't really change anything on the bike, Kenny (Tolbert) just put a couple of razor-blade slits in the rear tire, and I don't know if that had anything to do with it or not, but I went out and it was like I had flipped a switch or something. I started riding different lines and, all of a sudden, I was going back by guys. Heck, I ran down Atherton and just didn't have enough time to get by him in the heat race.
"We finished a strong second versus a fading fourth, so I don't know what the deal was with that. It's one of them things where you just have to regroup, and the red flag allowed us to regroup a little bit.
"The main event comes along, and with a second-row start, I get a pretty good start, about sixth into turn one, and it looked like Springer (Jay Springsteen) hooked onto the back of somebody - I'm not sure who it was. I had decided to go to the bottom anyhow in the first corner, and got a really good drive and came off of turn two and I'm third down the back straightaway.
"So things started off pretty good and Atherton moved up - I guess it was (Bryan) Bigelow leading, with Murphree second, Atherton went by me on the outside in tree and four, so I'm running fourth.
"We ran around for a few laps, and Atherton moves by Bigelow, as Murphree had taken the lead, and I'm following Bigelow. It took me about six laps to get by him. Then I set my sights on Atherton and ran him down. It took me about eight laps to get by him. I guess he had gotten a slow leak in the rear tire, and the thing was going down, and I got around him. I really couldn't catch Johnny. He was really strong.
"We sat at about the same pace the last eight laps. He'd gain a little, I'd gain a little. Kind of a see-saw type of thing. We ended up a solid second, so it was a good night. Still go the point lead, I guess I'm six ahead of Johnny. Looks like Johnny's got his head screwed on straight this year, so I look forward to racing with him again as the year goes on."
Are you going to stop giving him as much advice now?
"Oh, I'm going to start telling him the opposite of what I really mean (laughs) and see if I can confuse him."
He gives you a lot of credit for his success.
"Well, it's nice of him to give me a lot of credit, but I give a lot of credit to him because he's the one who sought to make himself a better rider, and he's been working real hard with our Supercamp, and he's learned some things, and he's applying it to the racetrack, and the results are showing. All of us at the school are proud of him, and I'm personally proud of him, and he can use this for many years to come."