8/22/06

Fourth at Peoria for Carr

On a typically hot and humid August afternoon in Central Illinois, young Henry Wiles won his third consecutive Peoria TT, but for the first time in several years, Chris Carr was right on his heels for at least part of the race. Forced to qualify in the later groups in the roughest, driest track conditions, Chris and The Ford Quality Checked Team fought through to a fifth-place spot, rode in the last heat, but still managed a decent start. Chris climbed into second behind Wiles only to fall back to fourth at the finish. Nevertheless, it was an encouraging performance and Chris is looking forward to Peoria 2007.

"Peoria went pretty good for us. It got better as the day went on. We were in the fifth qualifying group out of five, and every time we hit the racetrack, there wasn't a drop of moisture left in it all day long. Fortunately we were able to get a good run in on the last qualifying session, got the KTM working pretty good, and we pulled off a fifth place qualifying effort and I figured for being in the fifth group, that was pretty decent. That put us in the fourth heat race.

"I got off the line second in that, behind a kid from Wisconsin, I believe, by the name of Jesse Janisch. He rode a really spirited race. I put a little pressure on him early and he was going good, and I just kind of settled in and pretty much decided to conserve energy for the main event. I'm getting old, so I got to have as much of that as I can at Peoria. He rode a great race and deserved to win and he handed it to everybody in the fourth heat race. Again, the race track didn't have any moisture whatsoever in it.

"Then we lined up for the main event and I finally got to ride on a groomed race track that had some traction and some cushion to start and had some moisture in it. We'd been making little changes all day long, trying to get the thing working a little better for the main event because we knew we were kind of screwed in all the times we had been out before with the race track, and I got off the line fourth, Murphree was leading, Wiles was second Janisch was third. I got by Janisch pretty early and set off after Murphree and Wiles. At that time, Wiles had gotten by Murphree and I was keeping pace with them. I caught Murphree, got by him and kept pace with Wiles for a couple laps, then he hit afterburners.

"I rode the thing as hard as I could for as long as I could. I ran second for about fifteen laps then Johnny got by, and I kind of kept pace with him a little bit. Then, about five laps to go, Schnabel got by me, and I finished a lonely fourth at that point. We rode it as hard as we could, ended up getting fourth, and it was the best I've felt at Peoria in a long time, so were looking forward to going back there next year, hopefully doing better and getting back up on the box if not the top. "


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