5/22/04
Two in a Row for Carr
Chris Carr took his second straight win of 2004 this weekend at Florence Speedway, a new venue for 2004 located just outside of Cincinnati, Ohio in Union, Kentucky. Riders described the track as slippery and stressed the importance of getting good drives out of the corners, and that's just what the Ford sponsored team were able to do through the combination of bike setup and rider skill.
The victory pushed Carr's point lead in this very early portion of the season to 21 points, leading up to this coming weekend's big Memorial day doubleheader in Springfield, Illinois.
"We were pretty competitive right off the truck. Just a few minor adjustments here and there. We went out and kind of got things dialed in for practice and went out and won our scratch heat. Got a decent start, and it seemed like I had to pass Paul Lynch all night long. He was in my scratch heat and my heat race, and I had to pass him in the main event too. He was going pretty good, and I was able to get good runs off the corners. This was the type of track where that was really important - getting a good run off the corner. We were getting good drives all night long, and that's what it took to win here. It was a slippery, little, little half-mile, and getting the drive was key, I think, and keeping your momentum through the middle of corners. We got a good run in our heat race as well, got out front fairly early and set sail on that deal, and we ended up being about a half-a-second slower than (Kenny) Coolbeth in total time.
"Main event came around and Lynch got the holeshot again and I got off the line second and trailed him for a little bit and got by him on lap four or five and set a good pace from that point on. I knew Coolbeth was back there through most of the race, and he had gained on me a couple of times, but he seemed like he was never able to put enough pressure on me to get me to make any mistakes. I just kept riding against the race track and all of a sudden the checkered flag was there and we were winning, so it was good."
You've one race on the small bike and now one on the big bike. That should make you confident going into Springfield where you are going to ride both.
"We've got a good all-around package this year, Kenny Tolbert and Richard Bates and Willie and Bubba Bentley and all of those guys out there in Texas are working hard and I keep getting good bikes to ride every week - I should do good!"
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