Cycle News

FLAT TRACK 2019 AMERICAN FLAT TRACK SERIES ROUND 1 / MARCH 14, 2019 DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY / DAYTONA BEACH, FLORIDA P78 iii My Own Race: 14 BRIAR BAUMAN 1ST AFT TWINS "It was a great night and all day long I felt good and the bike was so good," said Briar Bauman. "I can't thank the team enough. We (Briar and his brother, Bronson) were pretty solid. I knew I had a pretty good lead. I sprinted for the first five or so laps. I tried to conserve a little bit, but it was so rough. When you start to take a little breather, that's when you would hit a hole and get jarred around. There was a fine line between taking it easy and trying to bring it home. With Jared [Mees] and Bryan [Smith] going out, it is huge for the points. It's great to be leading the points right now." 17 HENRY WILES 2ND AFT TWINS Henry Wiles knew he had his work cut out for himself after moving into second. "I still tried to keep a decent pace," he said. "I didn't really know what was going on behind me. I wasn't really worried about it because I had a guy in front of me. It was a good race. I think we could have run the pace, but we needed a better start. At one point I hit a false neutral. It was kind of a sketchy deal. Those are things you have to deal with in those situations and not fall. I saw some pretty serious contenders on the side of the track tonight. We did a good job tonight. I am really stoked with a second place, but I want to win the Daytona TT." 5 JAKE JOHNSON 3RD AFT TWINS "I dug the shifter into the dirt in the chicane after the jump and bent it around back- ward," said Johnson. "Then it was panic mode for the last 12 laps, just trying to get that thing to shift. I was hitting neutral, missing gears. I was just trying to be calm and bring it home on the box. The way the track was, it helped because when you would come through turn one on the dirt, you could see the guys coming off the banking. So I had a gauge. I had a good gap, but I could tell they were getting closer, but not fast enough to get me. I was able to bring it home third." 4 BRYAN SMITH 15TH (DNF) AFT TWINS It was a disappointing start of the championship for the 2016 champ Bryan Smith, and a disappointing start on his new team. "I kept my shit together all day," Smith said. "I was running sixth the last half of the race. I went through the right-hander and hit a bump and [the bike] shut off. I don't know what happened. Battery and gas were good. Jared [Mees] gets so lucky. All those crashes and all the restarts and he has good luck and makes it back up there. Then he breaks, and I'm thinking, 'he finally ran out of luck.' Then two laps later, my bike quits. I thought I could make up some points on him." 1 JARED MEES 17TH (DNF) AFT TWINS Defending champ, Jared Mees had a disastrous start to the season with a DNF. "Something happened with the fuel tank; it cracked or something," he said. "I went in and must have lost fuel pressure or something because the bike just quit. When I was pushing it off the track, I looked down, and there was gas just pouring out of it. Con- gratulations to Briar Bauman, he was hauling ass. He was definitely the guy to beat. It was an uphill battle for me from the semi on. I crashed and got a lucky dog award with the red flag. Pearson jumped the light so bad that I waited thinking there would be a red flag and I was deep in the field. I didn't realize that he got a 10-second penalty. I got on Kolkman in the semi and tried to stuff him out of the way and fell. We came back and did what we had to do with the bike as best we could." 1 DAN BROMLEY 3RD AFT SINGLES "I just tried to follow Jesse," said defending champ, Dan Bromley. "They were on the perfect line, and trying to keep Mikey [Rush] behind me was definitely hard. We worked hard all day on the Red Bull/KTM Roof Systems of Dallas bikes. We plan to keep a consistent system all year."

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