Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

AMA Ford Quality Checked Flat Track Championship past Kopp. "I caught up to him [Kopp] and couldn't do anything with him," Coolbeth said, "We were crossing lines. I should have tried to run his line a few laps just to see if I could do anything with him, The last couple laps we were crossing. By the time I would get up to him, he would be coming down and I would have to shut off. He was crossing my line, On the last Former rookie sensation Jared Mees (21) lap, I tried pretty battled with current rookie sensation Nick Cummings (69x) for fifth place, with Mees hard but came up trying not to get in too hot when you are leading, it's hard to judge off yourself. He [Cool beth] was probably doing the same thing to me back there." Kopp said he just kept pushing. getting the nad. Cummings was sixth. "I had to run it in," Kopp added. "Kenny [Cool beth] and I were entering the turns on separate lines. I just kept running it in there. Once I looked over my shoulder, and we were side by side. We were looking eye to eye. I thought, 'Oh no, let's go, get out of here.'" Like Carr, Coolbeth couldn't find a way Heartbreak, Take One: J.R. Schnabel was the fastest rider an the track in the main event, leading the apening laps, but a dirty carburetor dropped his motorcycle to one cylinder and cost him a seemingly certain victory. Schnabel ended up 15th. [Kopp] ended up gapping me, and I then I maintained that for a while until Kenny [Cool beth] came by." Kopp's next challenger was Coolbeth, who grabbed second on lap 14. "The first start I got off the line good, then somebody crashed," Coolbeth said. "I don't even know what happened. On the second start I was back quite a ways, and Chris [Carr] and Joe [Kopp] kind of got away. By the time I got around everybody, J.R. [Schnabel] kind of fell back a little bit, and I got around him. I looked up front and thought they were quite a ways ahead, but I caught them pretty qUick." Once again, the race was on for the 46 AUGUST 3, 2005 • lead. Cool beth would run up right alongside Kopp in the middle of the corners, only to have Kopp pull away off the corners. "You know if he [Coolbeth] is behind you five or six laps from the finish, he is going to work his way past you, but I wanted this one so bad," Kopp said. "I'm not going to bump him, but I thought I was either going to throw it down or I was going to win this thing. I wanted it really bad. It's easier when you are following rather than leading. That's the same way I was killing Chris [Carr]. I would catch him right in the middle of the corner. You're guarding your line and CYCLE NEWS short. " Carr settled into third as the Kopp-Coolbeth war raged on. "There at the end with five to go we were all just sliding and skidding around," Carr said. "There wasn't anything to grab a hold of. They weren't really that much faster than me. They were better in the middle part of the race. They both got by me and did a good job." The fireworks still weren't over. If you could draw your attention off the leaders, Roeder was making an inspired drive to

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