I
t was a hectic season for Chris
Carr to begin with. The 1992
AMA Grand National Champion
was given a shot to go from dirt
to pavement and race for Harley-
Davidson's factory AMA Super-
bike effort. But Carr is a go-
getter, and he was used to racing
25 or 30 races a year as a flat
tracker and the AMA Superbike
season consisted of only 10 race
weekends. Seeing an opportu-
nity to double dip, Carr made
an arrangement with Harley that
allowed him to race the Grand
National flat track events on the
off weekends from Superbike.
As the season progressed
Carr was doing well enough on
his flat track "off weekends" that
he was doing decently in the
Grand National point standings.
His early season on the dirt was
highlighted by a fourth place at
the Daytona Short Track Nation-
al, on a weekend where he was
pulling double duty racing the
Harley-Davidson VR1000 Su-
perbike at Daytona International
Speedway by day and switching
over to night duty aboard his
factory-backed Harley-Davidson
XR600 at Daytona's Municipal
Stadium.
Things really began to change
in Carr's mind when he surprised
series regulars and won the Me-
morial Day weekend Springfield
Mile. Suddenly Carr was in the
thick of the points chase on the
flat track side.
The Mid-Ohio AMA Superbike
race weekend was coming up.
That was a conflicting weekend,
so Carr hadn't originally planned
on racing the AMA Grand Nation-
al Short Track in LaSalle, Illinois,
that same weekend. But after his
Springfield victory, Carr looked at
the map and saw that Mid-Ohio
Sports Car Course and LaSalle
Speedway were only about 360
miles apart as the crow flies,
so maybe if everything clicked
perfectly, he could run Super-
bike qualifying at Mid-Ohio, drive
like a mad man to the Mansfield
airport about 15 miles from the
track and take a private plane to
Peru, Illinois, one town over from
LaSalle, get picked up by a friend
and dash to the short track in
time to try to qualify for the Grand
National.
"My deal with Harley was it
was kind of like a try-out year to
CN
III ARCHIVES
P120
BY LARRY LAWRENCE
Chris Carr (4) seemed to have no
problem racing the factory Harley-
Davidson Superbike and short-
track machine on the same day.
Here at LaSalle, Carr finished on
the podium.
PHOTO: DAVE HOENIG
CARR'S CRAZY COMBO-
NATIONAL WEEKEND
