5/31/05

Up and Down Weekend For Carr in Springfield

Memorial Day Weekend means Springfield, and Springfield means great flat track racing. Chris Carr and the Ford Quality Checked Team rolled into central Illinois with the series' points lead looking to establish the dominance that has carried Carr to six previous titles.

Racing began Saturday with the Springfield TT, held at the Rodeo Arena on the Illinois State Fairgrounds. Carr looked strong in practice and in his heat race, but a poor start in the main event left him playing catch-up on a track where passing is difficult. After pushing hard through 25 laps, Carr could only muster thirteenth.

On to the Mile, held just a stone's throw away within the Fairgrounds. After practice and scratch heats, a three-hour rain delay halted the program. When racing resumed, the track was tacky and fast. In the main event, Carr battled with Harley's Rich King, Jones Powersports' Kenny Coolbeth, and Bartel's Shaun Russell until the last lap, when King was able to put some distance between himself and the rest. Chris had to settle for second, however, his points lead is now fourteen over Coolbeth, who may turn out to be his strongest challenger in 2005.

TT

"We started off real good, real competitive. They had me as the fast qualifier, but that was kind of disputed by everybody in the pit area with clocks. We didn't agree with it, but there's not a whole lot of recourse with them having a clock malfunction, so by everybody's watch (in the pits), (Henry) Wiles was probably the fastest qualifier. But they had him eighth for some reason. Just one of them things, you know? We got a gift as far as that was concerned. The downside was, it put me in the first heat race with Wiles and (J.R.) Schnabel, who had to come from the second row. We got a good start on that originally, and we had a red flag after a couple of laps. I had a decent little gap at the time, however, on the second start, I didn't get the start that I wanted, didn't get into (turn one) like I needed to, and Wiles and Schnabel were a lot faster than me. Schnabel got by me on lap five or six, and he went after Wiles. I was kind of a lonely third in that one.

"In the main event, I was starting in the middle of the second row, and I got a decent jump off the line, but I was kind of pinned in the middle of the pack, and there were guys jamming up the inside of me and guys going around the outside of me. I was kind of stuck in the middle lane of traffic in L.A., and it didn't quite work out. We got to the jump on the first lap and I was dead last. So it wasn't a very good first lap. I was able to pass about three guys, and got a couple of more positions through attrition, some guys going down, and I ran a lonely thirteenth from that point on. One of those deals where we couldn't get going in the main event, I struggled a little bit with the handling on the KTM as the track was drying out, and just got my butt handed to me. Everybody up in front of me was kind of freight-training around, there didn't appear to be a whole lot of passing, and it was just one of those night that we hope is our worst finish of the year."

Mile

"What can you say? Typical Springfield, except for the track. With the rain delay, the track got real quick right after the rain delay. We had gotten through practice and qualifying, and we were very, very competitive. Heat race, I had a nice battle with Joe Kopp. He and I went one-on-one for the whole ten laps, and I was able to go around him on the outside going into turn three on the last lap, and beat him to the line to win the heat race. That was cool, we knew we were capable of beating him, and felt real confident going into the main event - that we could handle him if it got down to a one-on-one deal.

"Main event comes around - they had a nice little award - first time ever that I remember (other then the night before), Gutteridge Harley-Davidson had put up $500 or the holeshot. I easily got the holeshot, got a great start, led going into turn three, then a couple guys got by me. I kind of settled in, because they had wheel packed the track a bit, and I wanted to see how the track developed. So I just cruised around in fifth, sixth, seventh, that area, for about six or seven laps. About halfway flags, I got up towards the front, and diced it out with (Rich) King, (Kenny) Coolbeth, Kopp, and (Shaun) Russell the rest of the way. The last ten laps or so, those were the only guys I saw. We just had one of those typical Springfield Miles.

"I was leading going into turn one on the last lap, and King did a slide job past myself and Coolbeth in between turns one and two, and he started evasive action at that point. He basically blew the gap apart coming off of turn two with a pretty severe move to the inside going down the back straightaway, and the top three positions did not change the rest of the lap. They did a good job to get him his first win of the year, and we got second. That's the way it goes."


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