The short track went relatively well, with Chris finishing fifth in a very fast field, but the mile was another story, the track not in very good shape and somewhat dangerous. Chris elected not to race the Harley and followed Kevin Atherton home in second on the VOR in the single-cylinder class of the F-USA series.
"I went out and had a real good time. I was competitive in the heat race, had a great battle with Terry Poovey for a good first six laps of the heat race anyhow. He ended up stalling his bike after running into the back of (Joe) Kopp, who we were chasing, and Kopp ended up winning the heat race, and I got second.
"In the main event, it seemed like I raced with just about everyone on the racetrack except the guys up in front of me. I got a pretty good start from the inside second row, and was up there a little ways, and then kind of got my doors blown off for a few laps and dropped back to...oh, it seemed like ninth or something like that. I settled down, and it seemed like the next four guys I passed, I passed because nearly every one of them about crashed in front of me at one time or another.
"I ended up a distant fifth when it all was over. I never really saw much of Nicky Hayden at all. I heard he was pretty much gone up front, and all those guys rode good. When you're on a little bar-banging short track, there ain't a whole lot you can do if you don't get up with them right off the bat.
"It was a fun night. I enjoyed it, and I'm glad I rode.
"The Mile on Sunday was somewhat of a different story. I kind of wish I hadn't even showed up in San Diego for that one. The track was a typical lousy Del Mar - really rough. I knew we were in trouble when I was in the very first practice session. We went out, and I was one of the top three fastest guys in that session, running low 40s, like a 40.3 or something like that, and the track was getting rougher every lap that whole session on the 450s. We were in the very last qualifying session after that because they invert the groups, and I was basically two-and-a-half seconds slower in the eighth session out. So I knew the track was coming apart and it was going to be trouble for everybody the rest of the day.
"After that last session, I decided not to ride my 750 simply because I didn't feel it was worth it. Those who chose to ride, I respect that, I just didn't feel comfortable wanting to go out there on a big bike and push it to the limit for a little bit of cash, and I chose not to ride it.
"My heat race and my main event on the VOR were actually kind of boring. Kevin (Atherton) just plain kicked my butt all day long. He spanked me by eight seconds in the heat race and thirteen seconds in the main event. I had fairly comfortable second place finishes in both of those. He was certainly the class of the field, and I congratulate him on a good race, and we did the best we could. We got second."
What are your immediate plans for the off-season?
"Well, the honey-do list is getting bigger and bigger and bigger, so I'm going to tackle that, plus we've got some stuff coming up in the next month or so with Supercamp, and income taxes, and trying to finalize all of our deals for 2003. Things are looking real good as far as that's concerned, although we're always in the market for more opportunities to work with people.
"We'll get ready to do it all again on 2003."