MYOWNRACE
inside berm and then lay mo onless fol-
lowing a crushing impact. Instead, Brunner
showed up good as new on Saturday and
again flashed the pace to fight for the win
if he'd only had be er luck. He explained,
"I pulled up to the start and no ced my
clutch cable had fallen off the motorcycle.
So, I stalled it, put it back in neutral, and
basically rev bombed it and dropped it into
gear for the start. That put me pre y far
behind but I tried to make the best of it."
27 ROBERT PEARSON
8-5 SUPERTWINS
The physical condi ons of the circuit
played to the strengths of Rackley Racing's
Robert "Bugs" Pearson, who tracked down
and overhauled Brandon Price to com-
plete the top five on Saturday. "This night
was a li le bit be er for me," he said. "We
changed some engine configura ons and
were struggling a li le bit to figure it out.
Tonight we made some changes and got
the thing working be er. I had a pre y
good ba le with (Brandon) Price. We're
happy to come out of here with a top five
and start building some momentum going
into Lima."
On Friday night, Mees struggled to
find his groove in the difficult condi-
tions, allowing Robinson and Bauman
to fight it out for the win between
them.
Motivated after feeling robbed of a
victory a few weeks earlier at the Chi-
cago Half-Mile, Robinson controlled
the action from the front throughout
and brushed off a late-race push on
the champion's part to become the
first rider to claim a second premier-
class main event victory this season.
"Coming into OKC, I just wanted
to redeem myself after Joliet—just the
buzzkill there of thinking we had a
shot to win and then having it taken
away from us," Robinson said after
Friday's main event. "I just wanted
to come out here and prove a point
that we're in this thing. It was sweet
redemption today."
Despite salvaging third, Mees was
shaken by what he considered an
overly-tentative approach and vowed
to come out swinging the following
day. And that he did, breaking free
from the start and running away un-
challenged to a blowout victory.
"Last night I just rode tight and
tense," Mees said. "I've been off the
normal training regime for about ten
weeks now and it kind of showed [Fri-
day)] night; I just wasn't comfortable…
wasn't 'flowy.' I woke up [Saturday]
morning and was sore and achy. I was
thinking it was going to be a long day,
but I wanted to come out and ride
more aggressively and more fluidly
and I did. It feels really, really good to
get a win after what I've been through
the last 10 weeks."
That win was assisted by Robin-
son's poor luck—clutch issues in his
semi forced him to start from the back
VOLUME 58 ISSUE 25 JUNE 22, 2021 P83
Robinson gained a little
ground on points leader
Briar Bauman with
his second win of the
championship that came
on Saturday.
