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Oeyeone Beech, FL· March 11,2000 AMA,/Progressive Insurance U.S. Flat Track Championships Round 1 : Daytona Municipal Stadium (Left) Not bad: Jay Springsteen (9) cruised to his second four1h-place finish in as many nights, while Chris Carr scored a decent fifth-place finish. Last year's winner, Will Davis (21), slipped to seventh by race's end. tussle with Corbin Racing/Burks Motorsports' Kenny Coolbeth and HD of Dallas/Eagle Security rider Willie McCoy, the latter aboard the immaculate ATK of Karl and Kim Klement. Bigelow held off Cool beth for eighth, while McCoy put in a decent ride after coming from as far back as anyone could - the outside of row three - to land 10th. "I needed to settle down out there I was riding like a wild man," Bigelow said. "But I usually don't come out of rest of the season. It was just frustrating because it was hard to pass. I made some attempts up high earlier, but it was hard to be consistent pn the high line. The dirt they dragged around was inconsistent, thin in some spots and thick in others. On the bottom it was consistent, and with everyone going down there it just kept getting faster and faster. I thjnk it (track prep) was a great effort, but it just didn't work, in my opinon. They didn't ruin it either, and I think that Steve Morehead did a good job working with these guys. I think that we'll see some good things from him for the rest of the year." Schnabel was fairly impressive all day. Daytona hasn't typically been kind to the 20-year-old Wisconsinite, but he appeared to be loaded for bear this year. He started by posting the second-fastest time of the day in his scratch heat, and then was Poovey's first victim of the evening when the second 10-lap elimination heat took place. Schnabel took the direct transfer and parlayed it into a sixth-place finish by doing pretty much what everyone but Poovey had to do, which was basically stay the course on the groove and look for opportunities. He Simply followed Carr through the field and capitalized on Davis' mistake to earn a good start for the season. "That was good," Schnabel said. "We tried a Goodyear tonight, and it helped me a lot. The biggest thing was the bike. My dad and my uncle Scott and Steve Janisch put that thing together for me, and it worked really well. I felt like we could run with them all week. The Powells helped out a lot down here, and they've got some new 750 stuff coming, so I'm really pumped for this season." Davis wasn't exactly thrilled with the way that Daytona had gone for him this year, after experiencing the highs of his second Short Track win last year. "I don't really know what the deal 22 'MARCH 22. 2000· cue .... was," Davis said. "Poovey was just hauling the mail. It was just one of them deals where sometimes you're hooked up, and sometimes you ain't. We couldn't get hooked up. We were fighting an ignition miss all day. One time out there it choked coming off one of the corners, but luckily it started back again. If it hadn't, we'd have had a 17th-place finish. We'll take fifth, that's all we can do." A trio of young studs bulled their way through the field - one of them backward and two of them forward to land eighth, ninth and 10th. Bigelow got off the line from his starting spot in the middle of row one, and looked to be a factor in the race. Instead, his aggression got the best of him as he slipped and slid his way backward, eventually winding up in a Daytona with any points. My whole goal is to get in between Chris and Will as many times as I can this year; I want to mix it up with those guys. That's what I have to do." Also-rans in the main event included White's Harley-Davidson rider Mike Varnes, who made the main event on both nights and finished 11 th in the Daytona Short Track to make a good chunk of gas money for the trip back to his native Pennsylvania. SuperTrapp SuperTracker campaigner Roy Miller had the satisfaction of earning his first Grand National main event ride. The fv\&S Suzuki/White's Harley-Davidsonsponsored Miller finished 12th. Gardner Racing's Dan Stanley made a last-minute decision to come to Florida payoff, as he rode Rick Canode's entry to 13th. USA Direct's Paul Lynch was a surprise winner in heat l!llWfiJu W&J~ w[f) williDD [%il[jiJ@~f?_ _ When Team Harley-Davidson's Rich King climbed off his Bill Werner-prepared motorcycle after failing to get past Willie McCoy and qualify for the main event from the third semi, he was forced to answer some very tongue-in-cheek allegations. After all, he had won the previous night's Hot Shoe main event. But then it all made sense, as Scott Parker was spotted walking the premises. Surely Parker must have donned King's leathers to take a ride in the semi. Ludicrous as it sounds, that might be the best explanation as to how the normally pole-putting King wound up absolutely punishing the cushion for six of eight laps in his failed bid at making the show. The Iowan looked identical to Parker in every way as he floundered around on the cushion, only to grab a handful and rocket down the straightaways. It was a display that left the whole team giggling afterward. Parker was the most amused. "That was the dumbest thing that they've ever done, asking me to put on his leathers and ride that semi," Parker joked in response neVIl's five, landing a spot on the front row for the main event. He worked his way backwards in the big show and wound up 14th, ahead of Stanley's Gardner teammate Steve Beattie and Continental Tire guy Greg Tysor, who finished last, ensuring that the field was book-ended by 41-year-olds. Nobody was equal to Poovey, however, the Texan haVing a game plan that started months before the race. "I just wanted this one," Poovey said. "I did a lot of work this winter. I worked on my bikes, and I went to Iowa and rode on the ice. It takes a lot of work to win this race." With a performance like that, one might expect that Poovey ought to consider coming out of retirement to race the entire series. It's a notion that he hasn't ruled out. "I'd like to," Poovey said. "I've got a lot of great people behind me, and I feel like I could be a top- 10 guy. But I've also got a job and a wife and a kid ... " And when it was all said and done, Poovey was quick to lay claim to starter Cox's checkered flag. He was spotted clutching it in the pits long after the race was over. "You just never know if you'll ever win one of these things again," he said. eN Daytona Municipal Stadium Daytona Beech, Flerida Results: March 11, 2000 [Round 1 of 151 HEAT 1 (10 taps; 10 riders, top 2 transfer): I. Joe Kopp (Rtx): 2. Jay Springsteen (RlX); 3. Rick Winsett (Rtx): 4. Kenny Coolbeth (W-R); 5. John Nickens III (Rtx): 6. Tony Souza (CCM): 7. Garth Brow (W-R): 8. Roger Lee Hayden (Rtx): 9. Pat Behrle (Rtx): 10. Shaun Russell (Rtx). Time: 3 min.. 16.950 sec. HEAT 2 (10 laps: 10 riders, top 2 transfer): I. Terry Poovey (Rtx); 2. J.R. Schnabel (W-R); 3. to the phony charge. "Hell, I thought that was me out there for a second. I said to myself, 'Rich King has been coming to Daytona for years, and he has never rode the cushion like that fOf six laps, ever, and then he did it in the same race! But that just goes to show you, just when you think that you've got this place figured out, you find out that you don't know what the hell you're doing.' King was a bit miffed about it himself. "About halfway through the race out there, I wish that I could have taken my leathers off and handed 'em to Scott because I didn't have a clue what I was doing up there," he said. Factory Harley mechanic Bill Werner even got in on the jokes when discussing the team's setup. "Obviously neither one of them have liked whatever it is that I'm doing for them here," Werner said. "One time in 10 we've hit right down here. Eight times out of 10 we've gotten it wrong. I just turned Rich King into Scott Parker out there, so I know I did something wrong. Rich said that he was going to try everything short of running it through the wall to get to the front, and he just about did that. We just have to reassess that setup. It worked fine last night, and it's exactly the same way." About the only other surprise non-qualifier of the night may have been Mike Hacker, who appeared to be a bit too aggressive in chasing the high line, allOWing Greg Tysor to roll underneath, take the win and eam his second Grand National main event berth in as many tries at Daytona.