Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

AMA Ford Quality Checked Flat Track Championship 28 Shaun Russell 6th "My heat race was fun, with me and Springer going at it - that was kind of cool," Russell said. "Bill Bartels was here, so I'm sure he was having fun with that, but I was little bit off the whole night. The leaders got away, and I wasn't able to race for the win. I was just kind of back there, cruising around. Actually, I passed a lot of guys, because Istarted off terribly. I moved up pretty far, and then on the restart, I don't know if they messed up on the restart or if that's actually where I was. It seemed like I was ahead of three or four people that they put me behind, maybe even more than that. So I had to pass all them again. Actually, it took quite a while. We were kind of struggling." 20 Johnny Murphree 8th "It felt pretty good early," Murphree said. "We made some changes after the heat race. It was just like all year. I rode my butt off, and the bike seemed good early on, but as the day went on, we faded. I was coming forward as the main event went on; then I started going backwards." 26 Steve Beattie 9th "I'm having so much fun riding those bikes right now," Beattie said. "I told Dave [Atherton] I can't thank him enough because he gave me a chance to ride them. The things are fast. They are the fastest things I think I've ever ridden on a mile. Everything about them is nice. Kevin and Icouldn't make up our minds on which bike we would ride until the last minute. At the last minute, we were jamming stickers on mine. He got first choice, and I got second choice, and I was happy because that's the one I wanted, so it all worked out good. I hustled through the night and just got faster. Igot up to seventh in the main event. My tongue started falling out a little bit, but that's just a lack of riding down here. Other than that, I'm happy with ninth. I actually came from way deep in the field and charged up to there. I was passing guys and passing guys. One of the funniest things is that I know what these guys like Murphree and Russell and these guys that are good milers were thinking when I passed them and they saw 'number 26' on my back. They were thinking, 'Darnn, this guy hasn't been riding all year, and look at that!' The only thing I'm bummed out about is that I couldn't stay in front of those two. Other than that, I'm happy with a top-10. The top 10 is kind of where I wanted to be. A top-fIVe would have been better, but realistically a top-lOis what I was looking at." 10 Chris Hart (1) battled with Scott Stump (77A) in the Spartstar Performance National - with the victory and title going to Stump. feeling all that great all day. We made a bunch of changes for the main event. It wasn't working off that first start, and when the red flag came out, we made some more changes. We made some pretty drastic changes after the red flag, and it was still the same deal. I guess I'll scratch all of our DuQuoin notes and do something different." Bartels' Harley-Davidson/TNT Harley.com's Shaun Russell finished sixth, while the rejuvenated Terry Poovey brought his Doc's Harley-Davidson/Ted Sakaida/ Briggsauto.com-backed Harley to a seventhplace finish. Coziahr Harley-Davidson/ National Cycle's Johnny Murphree, Lancaster Harley-Davidsonl Saddlemen's Steve Beattie and American Suzuki's Kevin Varnes rounded out the top 10. HARLEY-DAVIDSON SPORTSTER PERFORMANCE NATIONAL Coming into the last race of the HarleyDavidson Sportster Performance Series, 42 OCTOBER 12,2005 • CYCLE NEWS Dan Stanley I I th Dan Stanley kept the Aprilia string of successes alive as he put the Lloyd Racing/Double L Builders mount into its fifth straight Mile National main event. "We suffered through a few things like the clutch went out," Stanley said. "The new bike that they just built was really good in practice; then the engine started doing some funky stuff. We went to the tried-and-true bike that they've been riding. I was thinking that the clutch was starting to slip the last couple laps of the heat race. They didn't believe me, but they changed it anyway, and that fixed that. Then we won the semi. We were getting ready for the main, and the gas tank is cracked, so we drained it all out of there and threw some JB quick-weld on there and let it dry. We filled it up, and it didn't leak. The bike was actually working better at the end of the race than it was in the beginning. I was rolling up on people and passing them. It was a good finish for the Aprllia. It has made five mile nationals in a row. They said I get the bragging rights for the best finish of the riders so far. I think the new bike probably would have finished better. It's like six or seven more horsepower. It actually handled really well, but we didn't want to take any chances. I'm happy. That thing is 10 times better than the last time I rode it. You can dump her off in the corner with the Harleys and still make the corner. It was pretty cool."

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