Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

ahead of a great early scrap among McCoy, Johnson, Springsteen and Carr. Then came Patriot HarleyDavidson's Rick Winsett, King and Lancaster Harley-Davidson/Saddlemen's Steve Beattie, with King and Beattie running side by side off turn four on lap five. Carr made his way past Johnson on lap seven to take the fifth spot on lap seven. He picked off McCoy two laps later and then passed his former factory teammate, Atherton, for third with a strong drive down the back straightaway on lap 11. "First lap, first corner, I went off into one, and my butt was a foot and a half off the seat," Carr said. "I hit some rut that I couldn't see, and a couple of guys went around me on the inside. After that, it was just a matter of finding out what worked for me. We had a real good pace, but we just didn't have a good first five laps. It was getting slippery going into one - slipperier than it had been all day," Carr said. "A couple guys got in there hot, and I was able to set 'em up a bit. I ran a different line than everybody through there, and it worked good. There was nothing we could do once we got to third." Coziahr Harley-Davidson's Johnny Murpree, on the other hand, was doing a lot of... doing. After having botched his heat race and then win- gain on Carr but finish about four seconds behind the champ when the checkered flag fell. "If you're spotting the best guys a straightaway, you can have the rest of the time in the month, and it's not going to help," Murphree said. "I was making time on Chris - I could see that. Kenny and Joe, I could see ning his semi to earn a back-row start for the feature, "Showtime" was putting on a show as he charged his way through the field, picking off about one rider per lap to move into fourth before the finish. Even once he was clear of Atherton, Murphree never stopped charging. He would them ... It looked like they might have gotten away a little bit the last few laps, but I don't know; I think that I could have raced with them. When you're up there that close to the front and stuff starts happening, you can race for the win. It all stems back to my heat race, when I stayed on the High, Wide and Handsome Although the Trl-City Speedway was actually open for business much earlier in the day, it took Chris Carr, in the second heat race, to get the racing surface open for business. After practice and scratch qualifying, it appeared as though the track would be a narrow-grooved pole puller. Terry Poovey provided the initial evidence when he used the low groove to outrun Memphis Shades' J.R. Schnabel and Bartels' Harley-Davidson's Shaun Russell in the first lO-lap heat race. All three ran down on the rubber to make the main event. Then came Carr in heat two. The reigning champion got off the line fourth, behind Rich King, Agles Excavating's Chris Boone and Johnny Murphree. All of them ran the bollom on the first lap, but then Carr switched tactics and blitzed around the top of the track in tums three and four, taking him past Murphree on lap two and past King on the next lap. Carr stayed up there and started to pull away, forcing King to jump up high, as did Boone, who was now fourth. Murphree stayed low on the groove. He would pay a heavy price for it. The heat had to be restarted due to a crash, but Carr took the win anyway, making the point that there was more than one way to skin a cat at Granite City. King finished second, while Jay Springsteen took advantage of the restart to steal third and go straight to the feature. "I had to do something to try and make it a better show," Carr shrugged. Upon seeing Carr's race, Kevin Atherton said, "I started smiling in my helmet," and then he went out and put in an old-time performance of his own to smoke the field in heat three. Young guns Jake Johnson and Bryan Bigelow battled for the other two transfers for much of the race. Johnson wound up second, Bigelow third. Kenny Coolbeth and Joe Kopp then set sail in what would turn out to be the fastest heat of the night, heat four, with Coolbeth getting the holeshot and leading his KTM/Jones teammate on a wild slider near the hay bales at both ends of the track. Coolbeth pre-· vailed, with Kopp second and Willie McCoy third - nearly a full str-aightaway behind but still good enough for the main. Coolbeth would be on the pole for the main. "I don't care to ride the top like that," Cool beth said. "It was kind of sketchy at first, but once I got used to it, it was all right. It was pretty rough down on the boltom, and my bike's not working too good down low. J adapted to the higher line belter, so I think that we're going to stick with that. We're going to start on the rubber; we're going to try and get a good start and get away from them. Everybody's fast, and it's a racy track now. It's a totally different story than before." . Actually, it would turn out to be much the same story in the feature, with the names at the front of the field changed by just one position. can't learn how to ride it, we need to figure something else out. I wasn't as comfortable as I really should have been. I need to really learn more about this suspension stuff. We got a real good start, but Joe and Kenny got underneath me through the first two corners. They rode a great race. They were really hooked up, and we had a lot of wheelspin right at the apex and coming off the corner. I was fighting the motorcycle, and it takes energy to do that. I ended up fifth. That's better than sixth." It all came down to Cool beth and Kopp for the win, with Coolbeth really putting the pressure on Kopp on the last two laps. Coolbeth took his shot at the lead in turn three on the last lap, pulling up the inside on Kopp as the pair backed it in. Kopp had the smoother line up high, however, and Cool beth tucked the front wheel as he tried to square up the middle of the turn. That was the difference, Kopp pulling back ahead to win it by a length. groove too long and didn't move up top, and those gyys just all went around me. If I could have started on the front row here, the outcome of the race might have been a lot different. I was doing all I could in the main, and I think we turned a bad day into a good day. Everybody has good days. We had a bad day, and we got fourth. I'll take it." Though he was passed by both 'Carr and Murphree before the finish, Atherton maintained about as consistent a pace as anyone else in the field, appearing to go no faster or slower during the 25 laps, and he did a good job of holding up McCoy and King to finish fifth. Consistency is what the Michigander says he has struggled to find since his return to racing last year. "The last few laps, I just tried to make it as wide as I could." Atherton said. "We're trying some different chassis setups, stuff that I have never used before. I think that it's something that I have to learn how to ride, or if I cue I e n e _ S • JUNE 25.2003 31

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