9/27-28/03

Carr Clinches Fifth Title at Springfield

Chris Carr became only the second rider in the history of AMA Grand National dirt track racing to capture five career titles Saturday night when he charged from a third row start to fifth place at the penultimate race of the year, held at the Springfield short track in Central Illinois. The blonde Pennsylvania native followed that up with a fourth in the Springfield Mile held Sunday afternoon.

Carr's fifth title moves him into sole possession of second place for the number of championships, behind Scott Parker's incredible nine titles. It is his second consecutive AMA championship and it included five wins and four podium finishes this season. Carr, who already holds the TT win record with fifteen, took over the all-time short track win title in 2003 with six victories in that category. With a total of 62 lifetime AMA wins, Carr is second once again to Parker in that record-book statistic as well, well clear of Jay Springsteen, who has won 42.

Now headed home for a few days of rest and relaxation following another tough season, Chris looks forward to 2004 and aims to add more milestones to what must certainly be a hall of fame career.

Short Track

"The short track was everything we expected it to be. It was a night filled with drama. We were pretty competitive in practice, one of the faster guys on the track and the IMDA crew, especially the guys there on the fairgrounds, did a great job of giving us something to race on with all the rain we had on Friday night. We had an odd race track to compete on, but that was okay. It wasn't the best Springfield short track they ever had in my opinion, but it was pretty good with what they had to deal with.

"We got going in practice, things were good. I had a decent scratch heat and proceeded to get a terrible start in my heat race. I put myself behind the eight ball with a nice bobble going into turn one on one lap, and I dropped back to about eighth or whatever. I fought my way back up and got fourth in the heat race. It was just one of those things where I was like, 'Dammit! Why did I do that?' That's the way it goes. We lined up for the semi, had a decent starting spot, and had a nice drag race into turns one and two with Greg Tysor, my buddy from Continental Tires, and I was able to get to the corner with him and run around the outside and set my own pace for the semi. We knew by the lap times that we ran that we were going to be competitive in the main event. The only problem was that I had to come from the third row and the guy I was trying to beat, Johnny Murphree, was sitting on the second row.

"We got a fair start in the main event and did what we needed to do, basically. I don't know how it happened, but I got up to fifth in a really shirt period of time and I knew I was ahead of Murphree, and I'm like, 'Wow! This is a pretty good position!' It looked a lot better than it did an hour before when we had to run a semi. I proceeded to ride around and do what I needed to do to wrap up a championship, and I congratulate J.R. Schnabel on a fine race - he was flying up front.

"So, we got to go into the mile with no pressure."

Springfield Mile

"We were very, very competitive. It was the best Springfield ever, until the next one (laughs.) Typical Springfield Mile. I made a rookie mistake late in the race. I came across the line for the white flag thinking it was the checkered, and I checked up a little bit going into one, and everybody was still hauling ass, and I'm like, 'Wait a minute, I need to get back going here!' I was in the perfect position to win the race, I just wasn't smart enough to take advantage of it.

"We ended up fourth, and it was a bummer for us, but we still had a great year, we had some great finishes, I'm pleased with all the hard work that Kenny Tolbert and Richard Bates put in all season, and we look forward to taking a little bit of time off and then getting ready to go at it hot and heavy for '04 real soon."


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