Carr fought it out in the beginning of the main with young Henry Wiles, then could only watch as the always aggressive J.R. Schnabel blasted past on a wild, outside line. Schnabel's charge ended early, however, as his machine faltered, handing Chris the lead. Geared and set up to ride around the inside, Chris' luck went away when the track changed midway through the race and rewarded those set up to run the high line around the outside. Joe Kopp and Ken Coolbeth slid by, relegating Carr to third.
The points lead is still intact, however it's reduced to just thirteen points. Chris heads to Hagerstown, Maryland this weekend for a battle on the paper-clip, red clay half-mile just outside of town.
"We had a good little battle with Henry Wiles in our scratch heat. He and I traded positions in the first lap or so, and then I went down to the bottom and found a line that was working pretty good. I got by him and set sail from that point. I beat him by about ten or fifteen bike lengths.
"We were second fastest, so were on the pole for the second heat race, and we got the holeshot and that and pretty much checked out. My low line was working pretty good, and I got away from Jared Mees on that one, and I won the heat race pretty handily. We were sitting on the pole for the main event, things were looking pretty good. We were excited to be as competitive as we were, having not been to Greenville in many years. The combination of that and (Geo) Roeder struggling most of the night with some mechanical issues - he was by far the fastest guy on the racetrack when he got a chance to get going - we felt pretty good.
"In the main event, we got a good start - on the first start we got a red flag - (Joe) Kopp had holeshot it, I was second. That lasted about two laps and they pulled the plug on it. Second start, Henry Wiles got the holeshot, I was second, and I followed Henry for a couple laps and (J.R.) Schnabel came up around me and then around Henry. After Schnabel passed Henry, I was able to get by him as well.
"I started chasing Schnabel, and he pulled out about a ten or twelve bike length lead and it went that way for about six or seven laps. I think he had a problem with a carburetor coming off or something like that. He was riding in the real deep stuff right up next to the hay bales. When he got his initial lead, we were kind of keeping pace with him, but weren't really making a dent in it, then he had a problem and we inherited the lead.
"It went for about another six laps or so, then Kopp was able to get by me, and (Ken) Coolbeth was able to get by me. The track had changed quite a bit, and I couldn't run my low line that had gotten me to the point where I was at, and it was a full-blown skidder from about lap eight on through the rest of the main event. There wasn't a whole lot of traction out there at all and those guys up front did a great job. I couldn't hold their pace and we were able to hold on to third.
"So off to Hagerstown. It's the closest National to home, and I'm looking forward to going there. We're going to have a lot of family and a lot of friends going there, so it's going to be a good time. We're looking forward to next Saturday night."