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/128125
AMAIProgressive Insurance U.S. Flat Track Championships Round 20: Du Quoin State Fairgrounds STORY By SCOTT ROUSSEAU PHOTOS By DAVE HOENIG/ FLAT TRAK FOTOS DU QUOIN, lL, SEPT. 29 hatever he takes away from his "second learning year" with the factory Harley-Davidson team, Rich King can rest assured that when it comes to the Du Quoin Mile, he has got things wired. After all, in a year when the orange-and-black brigade scored only two AMA wins all season while King and ace tuner Bill Werner toiled to perfect their game - perhaps taking longer to do so than either will admit - both of those wins came on the Magic Mile. King edged out Kenny Coolbeth here in July, and he did it again at the season finale. This time he held off three other riders, one of them not surprisingly being Coolbeth, for his 13th career Grand National victory. "This is awesome," King said. "I came in here feeling good, like I had a good shot at winning. I just kind of left it up to Bill to make the changes for the main event, and everything worked out great. The bike was awesome in the main event. King's M.a. was the same in this one, too. He wasn't the fastest rider in the field early, playing catch-up as Corbin Racing/Harley-Davidson of Missouri-backed Coolbeth and Saddiem en Racing/National Cycle's Kevin Atherton seesawed back and forth for the first six laps in the main event, which was cut from 25 to 20 laps by AMA officials who were concerned with excessive tire wear. Instead, King ran fourth, behind early fast guy Steve Beattie, the Canadian making his final appearance on the Gardner Racing Harley, surfacing to take the lead across the stripe for the first time on lap seven. Saddlemen Racing/Lancaster Harley-Davidson's Mike Hacker also joined in, moving into the lead pack just in time, as Atherton, King, Coolbeth and Hacker then pulled away from the rest of the field. At that point, King was ready to go for it. "We had fitted a new tire for the main event, and those other guys kind of. caught me off guard," King said. "I had wanted at least five laps on it before I had to start pushing, but then they jumped out there by about a half a straightaway. I was hoping that they'd get to racing back and forth with one another. Once they did, then I was able to catch back up." After running only a handful of races since his near-fatal crash at Du Quoin in 1999, Atherton appeared to W 32 OCTOBER 10,2001 • cue be back to his old self. Armed with new motorcycles that have gotten better every week, he had the sparse crowd on edge as he resorted to his old tactic of practically cutting the strings off the hay bales, running high above King, Coolbeth and Hacker, only to join right back in the draft at the start of each straightaway. It was the kind of flamboyant ride for which the Michigander is famous. He would be credited with leading laps two, five, nine and 10 across the stripe. Hacker, meanwhile, never picked up a lap-money envelope, he was second more than a couple times as the leaders fanned out - often threewide - at the start/finish line, but appeared all set to win his first mile Grand National as he battled King, Atherton and Cool beth aboard his Johnny Goad-tuned ride. Newly crowned AMA Grand National Champion Chris Carr was stuck in 12th place for much of the race, and he was hoping to be able to get his Harley-Davidson of Sacra-