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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128096
AMAlProgressive Insurance U.S. Flat Track Championships Round 1 : Daytona MuniCip I Stadium ready to go racing. All week long, I was ready to go racing. We've been decent all week long, but we just couldn't pull off a win. I guess that we were just saving it up for tonight." Davis said that preparation was the key to his victory. He prepared himself during the winter break by putting in a bundle of laps on a limestone short track that replicates the Daytona conditions. Davis' father built it in his own backyard. "Maybe everybody should build a limestone short track in their backyard: Davis said. "My dad did it, and I've sure been riding on it. Winning that Hall of Fame race last year at Springfield meant a lot, but this is the place that I love. All my life, my dad came here and sponsored riders who could barely make the main event. Daytona is just great. It's just great to win it in front of these people.» Being smooth didn't hurt either, and Davis was the smoothest rider on the track. Though Varnes got away first from the middle of row one and led the first three circuits, Davis never appeared nervous as he blasted his Mike Wheeler-prepared ATK off the low pole and pulled clear of the pack to take up the second spot. Davis STORY By SCOTT ROUSSEAU PHOTOS By FLAT TRAK FOTOS DAYTONA BEACH, FL, MAR. 10 fter running out of laps in his quest to catch and pass Brett Landes for the win in the Friday night Hot Shoe warmup race at Daytona Municipal Stadium, Fasthog.com/Moroney's Harley-Davidson rider Will Davis didn't want to waste a lot of time once the 16-rider main event lined up to kick off the AMA/Progressive Insurance U.S. Flat Track Championships. He didn't, and when the race was over, he had made history, becoming the first rider to win the Daytona Short Track three times. The 33-year-old North Carolinian was the heavy favorite coming into the race, and he did not disappoint the BOOO-plus fans in attendance. After posting a win in the fastest heat race of the night, to take the pole, Davis snatched the lead from Memphis Shades/Coziahr Harley-Davidson's Kevin Varnes on lap three and never looked back as he cruised effortlessly to a 1.6-second margin of victory, thus adding this win to his previous victories from 1996 and 1999. "Holy smokes, manl" an ecstatic Davis said on the podium. "I was A 26 MARCH 21. 2001 • cue • e n e _ s then used a methodical diamond line on the tight quarter-mile track, clipping the apex in turn one and then letting it drift before squaring it off in the middle of the corners and then dropping low across the exit of turn two. He repeated the process in three and four, and his superior drives pulled him right to Varnes' rear wheel. And when Varnes, who was rounding the turns up high and using the dirt line to cut a much smoother arc around the bends, left the door open as they came out of turn two on lap three, Davis pulled the trigger in a perfectly timed maneuver that allowed him to run up the inside of Varnes and into the lead in turn three. From there, Davis simply started clicking off laps right on the 19-second mark for the rest of the race. He stayed clear of traffic and rode his own race, right into the AMA history books. "The way that the racetrack was, it really didn't make any difference to me," Davis said. "I felt like I could pass 'em. I had a real good line. It was real skittery going into the middle of the corners because the moisture was coming up. It was whoever could get into the corners and come off the bottom. I was just coming off the bottom, finding the dug-up dirt and launching off each corner. The race seemed like it was only 10 laps. I thought Poochie [AMA flagman Poochie Cox] was waving the halfway flags, and he was waving the white flag. But when you win races like that, they all seem that way. If I'd have been in 10th place, it would have seemed like it was dragging on for three hours, I'm sure." With Davis headed off toward the biggest check at the pay window, Varnes was left to fend off only one other challenge, this one coming from none other than Corbin Racing/Missouri Harley-Davidson's Joe Kopp, the defending AMA/U.S. Flat Track Champion. After finishing a dismal lath-place finish in Friday night's warmup, Kopp was on his game when those valuable championship points were on the line. He left the starting line third, behind Varnes and Davis, but it wasn't long before he found a quick, rounder line more toward the bottom and used that to dive-bomb past Varnes about eight laps into the race, taking second place away. Kopp then settled in and attempted a push