Formula USA National Dirt Track Series presented by Drag Specialties
Round 1: Houston Raceway Park
STORY By BRIAN COMEAU
PHOTOS By BRIAN COMEAU
AND GARY KIDD
BAYTOWN, TX, APR. 27
f2 ormer
Formula USA National Dirt
Track Champion Chris Carr came
to the Foremost Insurance Houston
Half Mile hungry for a win, and when
it was all over, he had served the
competition some Italian food for
thought.
Before more than 4000 spectators,
the Quality Checked Certified PreOwned Ford Racing/David Liles
Ethanol Fuels/Harley-Davidson of
Sacramento-supported Carr rode to a
convincing win to kick off the 2002
series and give Italian-based Vor its
first major victory in the United States.
"Our lap times were really good,
but because we had the red flag [in the
heat race], we didn't get a total time,"
Carr said. "When you look at the individual lap times, we knew we were
going to be competitive and tough to
beat. We were encouraged despite the
start position for the feature. I just
went out and ran 25 laps as best as I
could and that was good enough to
win tonight. Hopefully this will put Vor
on the map with consumers."
Carr offered high praise for his
machine, which has very little in the
way of development time.
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MAY 1 S. 2002·
eye
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"This is a great powerplant," Carr
said. "It is not a complete Vor production bike, just a Vor production motor
in a flat-track chassis. It is actually a
bike they have been taking around to
the motor shows for the last two
years. We finally talked them into letting us come out and race it instead of
throwing it in the back of a truck all
year. It's great right out of the box,"
Clouds loomed overhead initially
and the threat of rain was on every-
n
__ s
one's mind, but the skies never
opened up and event went on as
scheduled without any delays. Carr
ran the fastest lap time in the qualifying session at 21.447 seconds, almost
half a second faster than KTM-mounted Joe Kopp's 21.895. Y2K Rookie of
the Year Bryan Smith was a step back
with the third fastest time.
Carr's domination continued in his
Heat race, where he jumped out front
early and rode to a convincing win
Jason Tyer (12) Chris Carr (4), Terry
Poovey (1), Steve Murray (26X) and
Joe Kopp (3) blast off the line at
Houston Raceway Park to kick off the
Formula USA National Dirt Track
season opener.
ahead of American Suzuki/Yoshimura/White Brothers-sponsored Larry
Pegram. A crash early brought the red
flag, and after the restart, Steve Uberty picked up third on his Latus Motors
Harley-Davidson/Hot Heads/Liberty
