Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128110
AMAIPragres s ive Insurance U .S . F lat Track C hampio n s hips Round 7 : Hagerstow n Speedw a y S T O RY By S COTT R OUSSEAU PH OT O S By D A VE H O ENIG/FLAT T RA K F OT OS HAGERSTOWN, MD, JaNE 17 f nothing else , the Harley-D avidso n of Sacrament o/Pho enix Rac ing d uo o f t wo -t im e AMA G ra nd Na t ional Champion Ch ris Ca rr and his perennia l t u ne r Kenny Tolbert pr ov ed at round seven of th e AMA/Progr essive Ins u ra nc e U.S . F lat Trac k Cham pionships series tha t they can ada pt. As a tu ner , Tolbe rt pro ved that he can certainly prov ide Ca rr with a fast motorcycle, whether the red half-mile clay ova l at Frank Pless inger's Hagers town Speedwa y is damp an d tacky fast like fly paper , or dry and s lick as wax pape r. And e ithe r way, Ca rr once a ga in p roved that he is game no matte r the cond itio ns . The entire AMA Grand National conting ent - all 38 of them - who s howed up to do ba ttle at Hagerstown got two lo oks at the race track, albeit one of th em just a brief practice sessio n before harsh we ather moved in o n the origina lly schedu led Saturd ay nig ht s how and kicked the program to the S un day rain da te. That version of the track was about as hooked up a s you're likely to find. Come Sunda y, it was couples on ly. O 24 J UNE 27 . 2001 ' c ue I e Carr looked flas hy in both condi tions , but he was unstop pa ble on the icy gro ove that de ve loped as the da y wo re on. He had the fa stes t four -lap scratch qua lifying heat, posting a time of one minute, 42.021 seconds, then backed it up with a heat- race win over defending Progr essive Insurance U.S . Flat Tra ck Champion Joe Kopp, once aga in sett ing fast time to land on the pole for th e 25 -la p m a in event. In the m a in event, Ca rr on ce again ba tt led with non e other than the Corbin Rac in g / Ha r le y - Da v id s o n o f Missouri backed Kopp, the two staging a showdown that could well be representativ e of the championsh ip battle during the remainder of the s eason. Th is time , Ca rr ca me out on to p. "It was a go od ra ce," Carr said. "I know o nce I got by Kop p that last time , it was kind of boring, just not from where I was s itt ing . We had gone back and forth for the first five o r six laps , so I figured th at when I mad e that last pass , I wanted to make it stick. I wanted to see if I co uld gap h im . I was a ble to get a go od run, a nd I was ab le to establish the gap that I wanted . The th ing is , even though this p lace has really tight corners, the finish line is s till in the middle of the front stra ightawa y. I n e vv s wanted to get th e bike stopped and get it turned so tha t I could get go ing the othe r way . You want to charge af ter a guy, but then anything that you make up , you 'll s e e go away when he comes off the corner. I'm jus t sp eculating that he was trying too ha rd , probably. The track was th e most cons istent in the ma in event tha t it was all day - it was slippery everywhere." Kopp led Carr a nd the rest of th e 18 -rider field off the starting line and into turn one, with Kopp's teammate , Kenn y Coolbeth running th ird. Coolbeth im m edia tely pla yed a significant role in the outcome of the race, as he bo b ble d going through turns three and four , forcing all 16 riders behind him to check u p in a cha in-reaction fashion . By the time they all got back on the gas , Carr and Kopp had already waltzed away to a l Ovlenqth advantage as th e y came around to log the first la p . Cool beth was quickly swa llowed b y the pack, as some heavy hitters , includ ing Bartels Harley -Davi dson / Co rbin's Jay Springsteen , Gardner Racing /La ncster Harley -Dav idson's Brya n Bigelow and Fasthog .com/Moroney 's Harley Dav idson rider Will Dav is were gathering s te a m . After be ing de layed by one day for ra in, the Grand Na tional gets undelWay, w ith Joe Kopp (1) leading Kenny Coolbeth 1 11, Chris Carr (4) , Johnny Murphree 3 1201, Will Davis (2 1), Bryan Bigelow (11 ), Rich King (80), Steve Beattie (26), Shaun Russell (28) and Jess Roeder (94). "I wish that I had used my head a little earlier," said Coolbeth, who ultimately rebounded to finish se ven th . "The first two laps , I almost bailed off, the n [ was kind of leery. Some of the bum ps d idn 't get wheel -pa cked th at well . and they had water in them. I don 't know , once I calmed down, I just used the whole track pretty much. I couldn 't find an y traction. It was so slippery. You could run low, but you had to shut it off way early because it would skate in ther e p retty far. " Kop p held t he le a d the first two times across the s tripe, but then Carr wen t on the attack. fainting outside of Kopp off turn four to drag race him to the line before shutting off early and skating back underneath him in turns one a nd two to ma ke the pass. Kopp proved a qu ick study and used the same mo ve to rec laim th e lea d in turns th ree a nd four. The n they were side b y si de again dow n th e back st raight, the race strangely be ginning to resemble some motorized version of the Ice Capades, exciting as it was to the s pa rse crowd. Kopp would lead