Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

(Above) Atherton (231 tried to get the jump on King (801 on the restart after the red flag at the halfway point, but King passed him and quickly built a half-straightaway lead. Atherton dropped back to fourth, while Kenny Coolbeth (311 passed Carr for second at the line. thing else. Hayden kept the crowd on edge as he ran his Harley up high, practically cutting the strings off the hay bales in turns one and two. Coolbeth and Carr then started drafting back and forth on lap six, with Coolbeth moving into third. Meanwhile, Bartels' Harley-Davidson/Corbin's Jay Springsteen, Gardner Racing/Lancaster Harley-Davidson's Bryan Bigelow, Bartels' Harley-Davidson's Shaun Russell and Corbin Motors/Samson's Roger Lee Hayden were engaged in a drafting war for eighth place. Springer appeared to be getting the best of that one. King had built up a 12-bike-length lead on Atherton by lap 10, but on lap 11 the field was shown a red flag. Prior to the race, Formula USA offi• cials had agreed to throw the red in order to allow the riders to change helmets or tearoffs, but the crowd was not informed of the decision, which created some confusion. This much was clear, however: The restart would take place without Springsteen, who was spotted walking back to the pits as the order was given to fire back up. "It just dropped to one cylinder," Springsteen said. "Sometimes it would run on two, and then it would drop back to one. The rules say that we're not allowed to work on them during the red flag, so we just did what we could. It was a big enough handful as it was, so I just parked it. I had a good year." Once back under way, King held the lead down the back chute, but Carr drafted past him before the entrance to tum three. Then Atherton shot all the way around the outside to take the lead off turn four. Atherton held the point until lap 12. It was to be the highwater mark in his bid for the win. He was fourth at the flag. "You could go fast for a couple laps, but then you'd hit a hole and lose your timing, and that's something that I just don't have right now," Atherton said. "That comes from racing every week, and I haven't been racing every week. The bike ran real good. You know, we could put a couple laps together, but then we'd have one bad lap, and I'd just lose all my momentum. I just let Kenny and Chris ... It's kind of stupid to try and stuff it under a couple guys for second and third here. "But I'm satisfied," Atherton continued. "We've done five races this year, and we've finished in the top five at all of them. We just have to keep this momentum going in the off season. We're just putting the program together for next year, and it's going well. We're happy." King broke clear of the field on lap 14 and once again began pulling out length after length. Carr was second at that point, but there was nothing that he could do to get with King. Though he would wind up third at the finish, he was second in the Istlegal.com Grand Slam, which was good enough for a $10,000 bonus. "It was real nice of Roy Plattel and his company [lstlegal.com] to put up that money for us, and I'm just disappointed that I couldn't give Rich [King] a run for it, but this has never really has been a great track for me," Carr said. "I got by him on the restart, and then Kevin got by us. We missed our setup, we believe, but even if we had gotten it right, I don't know if we would have had anything for Rich. He was going that strong. He put a halfstraightaway on me twice in 10 laps, so he was going good. It wasn't no gift. They did a better job than we did today." Cool beth came on stronger and stronger as the laps ticked away, and (Abovel King (center) had ample reason to celebrate his victory. In addition to the win, he also scored the big $20,000 bonus for being the top man In the 1stlegal.com Grand Slam of Dirt Track. he engaged in a brief drafting war with Carr and Atherton before pulling clear and putting seven lengths on Carr by lap 19. Coolbeth went on to finish a distant second to King. "We struggled pretty much all day," Coolbeth said. "I went out on our Suzuki in practice just to make everybody happy and just to see what it would do, and I think that hurt us. It cost time that we needed to dial in the 750. Then I blistered my tire the first 10 laps. After the restart, it cooled down." Still, podium finishes in his last two mile starts and a top-five finish in the AMA Series have Cool beth brimming with confidence and ready to start 2002. "I'm going to go home and train my butt off and then see what happens," Coolbeth said. ''I'm focused, and I think next year I'll be 10 times as focused. I've run with these guys, and I've shown myself that I can do it." By lap 18, the best battle on the track was contested among Hayden, Bigelow and Russell, with Russell suddenly figuring into things after a mediocre first 10 laps. The restart had worked wonders for the 22-yearold Californian. "It allowed me to see again, for one thing," Russell said. "It bunched everyone back up. Before the restart, me, Jay [Springsteen] and Bryan [Bigelow] were just running together out there. It seemed like for a while they weren't passing me, but then they caught back up. I wound up sixth, which is good for Del Mar. All my sponsors are here today, so hopefully this is good for them. We can take this into the off season and come back better next year." Russell's spot came at the expense of Hayden, who just never seemed to get on pace, coming up winless for the season. It wasn't his best year on the dirt "Not at all," Hayden said. "In the heat race, I felt good when there was cue ... still some cush, but they brushed all that off. I tried to go up top, but there was just nothing to get hold of. It was all just powder. I was going all right. That groove was really slick, and I kept getting a little hot and trying to do too much. I was just riding too hard, and the last lap I lost two positions because of it - not that a topfive would make me feel any better." It wasn't his best year, and Hayden said it may have been his last - at least in terms of chasing points. "I don't even know what I'm going to do [in dirt track] next year," Hayden said. ''I'm about over it, really. I thought that I was going to do it again, but I really want to win the [AMA] Superbike title, and I really don't need any distractions. If I want to do it, I still can. I still want to do Peoria and a few tracks here and there, but I doubt I'll be back every week next year." Bigelow crossed the line just ahead of Russell and Hayden, finishing fifth for the second night in a row, although this time it was without much of a fight - during or after the race. "On the restart, Gary Rogers must have missed a shift or something, and I kind of got into him - no big deal," Bigelow said. "Today, we decided that we were going to make our bike rip through the comers. We figured that we'd get passed down the straightaways, but we were going to rip through the corners. That's exactly what it did. At the end, I saw that Shaun was coming up in there, so I knew that I had to take care of Nicky. I just tried to beat the guys that I was racing. It was just hard to see, but that's typical Del Mar. You can't bitch about it, because you know what you're in for when you come here." n e _!IS . OCTOBER 24, 2001 29

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