A new venue for the GNC series, Granite City was one-lined and inconsistent, lending itself to little passing, although there were a few during the night, mostly due to the rider in front drifiting off into the dusty stuff up top and letting his pursuer drive through. Carr charged up from a second-row starting spot to run at the front before making one of those rare mistakes, eventually settling into fourth at the finish.
In two weeks, the show appears at the venerable Allen County Farigrounds in Lima, Ohio, the cushion track racer's dream oval. Carr has won at Lima for three straight years, and is definitely the favorite to win in 2002.
"So, we put a new shock on the bike and made a few changes, went out in the heat race from the second row and were able to get going - got off the line about fifth - and battled with Paul Lynch and George Roeder. I was able to get by those guys, and I chased Terry Poovey, who has had a lot of experience in Granite City over the years. I made a run at him toward the end of the heat race, but came up short and got second.
"So that wasn't so bad. The bike got better, and the track was starting to get better as the night went on.
"In the main event, I had a second-row start. I got a great start - I was actually second into the corner, but I pushed the front end a little bit, and that allowed (Bryan) Bigelow to get back underneath me. He and (Johnny) Murphree were going at it up front. They kind of checked out on me there for a while. About six, seven laps into the race they had put about half a straightaway on me.
"Then my bike started working. Things started coming around. Seven laps later I'm right on their heels. I put pressure on them, and Murphree started making some mistakes up front. Bigelow was all over him. I had (Kenny) Coolbeth right on my ass the whole time.
"I got going with those guys, and I made a little mistake around lap eighteen or so, and Coolbeth got by me, so I'm sitting in fourth and those guys started inching away from me. I gave it the best I had - the best I could do was fourth. Bigelow got by Murphree up front, those guys started dicing each other the last few laps, and I thought maybe I'd sneak in there and get by a couple of them, but we just came up short. We got beat by three better guys last night."
How was the new venue at Granite City?
"They had a good crowd for a first-time event. The track itself was nothing special. It was very slippery and inconsistent. They had some soft ruts throughout the middle of the groove here and there, but the track got a little bit better as the night went on. The groove kept moving to the bottom. We kept going lower and lower.
"The track was a little smoother during the main event than it was earlier in the night. It's one of those places where we were glad to have a good finish and make up for a slow start earlier in the evening and get out of there in one piece."
Lima is next, are you looking forward to that?
"We like Lima. We're looking forward to going there. We'll be there in two weeks. I won't be going to the Oklahoma City TT on the F-USA schedule. We're going to take the weekend off and get some work done here at home and we'll be rip-roaring and ready to go for Lima in two weeks!"