6/27/05
Fourth at Lima Good Enough for Chris
Afternoon thunderstorms forced a delay in the program for this year's Lima half-mile, but the track crew worked overtime to get the pea-gravel surface into shape for the evening's program. The fans that waited - and most of them faithfully stayed - were treated to an excellent race on a very raceable track. Jared Mees won his first ever Grand National race, with Chris finishing a solid fourth, just behind points rival Ken Coolbeth, therefore losing only a single point in the Championship chase. Chris now leads Ken by 23 points.
"Lima wasn't as bad as we thought it was going to end up, but we pulled out a decent finish on a night where we struggled a little bit. We didn't have scratch heats, we had a modified program after the rain showers that came in after practice. We had a little bit of a different race track after that, but it was still pretty hard and dry.
"In my heat race, I got a fair start, and Jared Mees just walked the dog on me. He was riding real good, and he just got away from us, and I didn't have anything for him. We were relegated to a second row start for the main event.
"I got a decent start, got off the line about fifth, and I just kind of hung with the front pack for the first half of the race, and they started to inch away at that point. I had a good run with Dominic Beaulac and I was able to get the better of him with about three laps to go, and it ended up that we got a solid fourth place. We'll take it on a night where we didn't really expect all that much. We only lost one point to Coolbeth, so it was a pretty good evening for us."
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