7/5/03

Another Difficult Half-Mile Event Finds Carr Down in Eighth.

Chris Carr and the Ford QCCPOV Team struggled to eighth place at the Sharon Speedway half-mile, an event new to the modern AMA calendar, riding with a bit of caution on a track that was less than perfect due to heavy rains that pelted the local area earlier in the weekend.

With the championship lead still intact, Carr, tuner Kenny Tolbert and crew will travel this weekend to Monterey, California to compete in the inaugural AMA Supermoto event taking place alongside the FIM World Superbike round and the AMA road race round at Mazda Raceway. Corona Suzuki is providing Carr with a Suzuki DR400Z to ride, and Chris expects to be ready to run up front.

"This weekend was a bit frustrating, but not too bad, I guess, considering that we struggled most of the main event. We ended up eighth. It could have been a lot worse. We could have been on our head or on the ground, but we got out of there healthy.

"It had all the makings of being a great first-time event there at Sharon, but Mother Nature ruined the race track a little bit for us. They worked their butts off to make it as good as they could, and it wasn't bad, but it wasn't anywhere near the best track that we've ridden all year., that's for sure.

"(Steve) Morehead and the crew, they worked their butts off to keep it as safe as they could, and it worked out good. If it weren't for that, it could have been one of the shining moments of the year. It was a great crowd, the weather turned out nice on race evening. It was, from what I hear, a fairly good race out front (laughs.) I witnessed it for about four or five laps, but I just started struggling for some reason or another. I don't know if it was me, a change in my riding, the track changing, the bike going away, or what. It was one of those things where when you got done, you scratch your head, and say, 'well, shit happens,' and go on to the next one. It was not my night. It was a struggling eighth. Congratulations to Jake Johnson, he was fast all night long."

You weren't sure whether you would be participating at the Laguna Supermoto when I talked to you last, but now, it seems, you've worked that out and will be riding there.

"I was contacted by the Friday before Lima by Ken Saunders, who is a part of the Corona Extra road race team, and all their road racers are injured or hurt, and they needed somebody to ride a DR400 that they had - that Jean-Michel Bayle had tested for them over the winter - and they gave me a call. I called Ford, and they're giving me a special exemption to ride a Japanese motorcycle for a weekend and we're going to go out and see what the Supermoto hubbub is all about."


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