CN III RIDERS WRITE
SLAMMIN'SAMMY
BY
SAMMY
HALBERT
THE VIEW
FROM
THE TOP
H
ey everybody, we're
about halfway into the
2011 AMA Flat Track
season and I'm excited to be
leading the Grand National
Championship by about the
same number of points as
after Daytona. It's been an incredible season so far, and I
feel like my team is becoming
more and more solid with every race. We're consistently
running up front, which is exactly what we need to do to
keep the points lead and win
the championship.
Memorial Day weekend we
always race in Springfield, Illinois, and this year was my
best Springfield ever. I finished second (by inches) at
the Springfield Mile, won the
Mile Dash for Cash and then
finished fifth in the Springfield
90-91 Halbert Column.indd 90
P90
TT from the back row. I can't wait to return to
Springfield Labor Day weekend.
I followed Springfield up by giving the
XR1200 class another try at Road America. I
really wanted to do well, as I'm pretty serious
about giving road racing a go sometime soon,
but unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how
to get the bike to be halfway stable underneath me. Looking back, I probably should've
passed on the opportunity and instead raced
a couple of non-National flat track events that
weekend to get some testing in on the clay
half-miles. I now realize I need to focus exclusively on flat track this year, as the championship is mine to lose at this point. Once
I've captured the number-one plate, then I can
expand my horizons to other types of motorcycle racing.
Winning the Lima Half-Mile in late June was
one of the highlights of my year so far. I love
cushion tracks and the huge Lima crowd really got me fired up. Traditionally, the winner of
Lima buys pizzas for everyone at the bar after
the race - so we placed a huge order and fed
about everyone in the place. I look forward
7/18/11 3:17 PM