Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Kopp led laps three and four before giving way to Carr. "I got a really good start, and a couple of guys slipped up and I got the lead and felt really good," Kopp said. "The second lap, I led. The bike bogged a little down the front straight, but I kept the lead. Then coming off turn two it really bogged, and Kenny and Chris both went by. Steve got me the next lap. I think we had some dirt in the float bowl, and it was coming up in the main jet every now and then. I could roll back out of it and it would start to run on two again, but as soon as I opened it up all the way it went back to one again, so that was a bummer. "I was trying to get around Steve on the outside, but the groove just wasn't quite wide enough," Kopp continued. Three times I pulled up alongside, but hit my clutch lever on his boot, and the engine just revved instead of pulling. If I'd just had another three inches, I could have got by. I really slipped bad in turn two and lost contact with him, but I was really lucky to get through that deal. 1 was thinking I'd try the high line to get him, but one time I slipped up there, accidentally, It was really slick, and I about went down, I'm glad I didn't go in there really hot and try to pass, I didn't think it would be that slick up there." Carr said that he knew the top would go away, because it had all day. IBelow) Roeder came under Immediate pressure from Kopp 131. and the man from Washington State eventually took over the lead. "You could only run up there so long," Carr said. "I think I rode three, maybe four, laps up there, but it got me to the front. I saw nobody went up there right away, so I thought I might as well and it worked." Beattie said that he just tried to keep his nose clean. "I saw a lot of drama going on, and it was finally nice not to be involved in any of that drama," Beattie said. "I knew from the get-go this thing was going to be down on the bottom of the racetrack. The biggest concern was to be on the front row for the final, that's a big part of the battle right there. We won the secondfastest heat and beat Carr and Atherton, so I knew we were in the hunt. I got a good start, and we went from there. I wasn't quite as fast as the guys out front, but third's good." Gardner Racing/Walters Brothers Harley-Davidson's Bryan Bigelow cruised home fifth. "On a track like this, it's hard coming from the second row," Bigelow said. "Our lap times were as fast as the leaders', but that doesn't mean a whole lot when you're back there running by yourself. It was a tight, one-line groove. Chris [Carr] did a heck of a job, running up high and getting by a lot of people. I tried the cushion in the heat and wasn't comfortable with it," said Bigelow. "The groove was just so tacky. I got a good start from the second row and got up into sixth right a way. Atherton raced with me for a little bit, and 1 think that held both of us up a little bit. We were side by side, tripping over each other the first couple of laps, and that let the leaders split. I think he passed me four or five times, then he'd got off the groove and all sideways with his head hanging down, and I'd pass him back. I.was just able to keep it on the groove and keep the wheels in line." Super rookie, Moroney's HarleyDavidson/SuperTrapp's Jake Johnson ended up eighth after passing Chris Hart on the last lap. "I thought I was around 13th or 14th, I didn't know I was inside the top 10," Johnson said "I was just trying to make things happen out there and I'd blow the groove. I think I passed Paul [Lynch] and Chris [Hart] three or four times. Once I was able to see, it was okay, but that first five or six laps were pretty hairy. I kept going into turn three off the groove on the bottom, and my foot kept hitting those Styrofoam poles." Performance Harley-Davidson/ Lombardi's Harley-Davidson's Chris Hart held on to ninth. "Ninth, I guess that's not too bad, for a groove," Hart said "That's the best finish we've ever had on a groove. We would have liked to have seen the cushion stay wet all day, and I think we would have been right up there, but we'll take ninth and go to DuQuoin. I'd rather see a cushion, but everybody has to ride the same racetrack. Jake and I went back and forth several times, but the only way you make a pass was wait for somebody to make a mistake. I made a few passes, but they weren't really racing passes. We just went to the bottom and stuck to the groove and took what we could get." Bartels' Harley-Davidson/Corbin's Jay Springsteen got off to a slow caught up to Roeder and got by him pretty quick, but then I was just by myself." Roeder was under a lot of pressure from Memphis Shade's Kevin Varnes, and on lap 17 Varnes dived under Roeder going into turn one. Varnes' entry was too low and he overshot the groove. It was disastrous for Varnes, as he went from fighting for sixth all the way back to 13th. "When Varnes tried to stuff it under me, he went off the groove and I followed him, but he went off worse than I did," Roeder said. "I thought I was pretty well settled in, but that's one of those things. He stuffed it in there, but when you come to a groove track, that's the way it's going to be. The only way you're going to pass is to stuff the guy - I was ready for it. If it would have been the other way around, I would have done the same thing. He stuffed me, and Bigelow stuffed me, and both times it pulled me off the groove. I don't know if I was picking up a draft or if it just broke my concentration, but I got in hotter than I wanted too." R&D Machine/Carl Patrick-backed Paul Lynch worked his way up to seventh after a slow start. "Obviously, the holeshot was important, and I was down in the marbles," Lynch said. "I got a really bad start. I think I got a little excited and got the thing spinning - guys were passing me from the back row. I calmed myself down after a few laps, and everyone got spread out where you could see again. I just started moving forward from there, just trying to stay on the groove. Following Jake [Johnson] was a pretty good show, I ... u ... I III n III _ S • OCTOBER 2,2002 23

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