Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/150387
ROUND 7/AUGUST 11, 2013 PMC RACE PARK/PEORIA, ILLINOIS FLAT TRACK P56 AMA GRAND NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP Baker leads Bauman off the infamous Peoria TT jump en route to finishing second to Wiles in the National. Jared Mees, who sits fourth in the series, still has an outside shot, but he'll need a lot of things to go his way for that to happen. But back to Peoria. Things were going smoothly for Wiles. He was the fastest man in timed qualifying with a best of 25.005. That was over .3 of a second faster than the second fastest rider in timed qualifying - Jake Johnson. Three-tenths is an eternity on a track that sees 25-second lap times, so Wiles was in a good po- BAKER WINS GRAND NATIONAL SINGLES TITLE It was a longshot, but it all worked perfectly in Brad Baker's favor. Baker held a narrow lead on Henry Wiles in the 2013 AMA Pro Grand National Expert Singles Championship coming into the final round. The only problem for Baker was he needed to come into Wiles' house and beat him. Not likely to happen and Baker was conceding as much before the race, saying how he could have won the title had it not been for points taken away at Daytona on a technicality - an issue with his bike's fork. But then Baker got a break – literally. Wiles' Kawasaki broke in his heat race, meaning he not only had to make the main by way of a semi, but more importantly - in terms of the GNC Singles Series battle - Wiles wouldn't be racing in the pointspaying Dash for Cash. Baker went out and won the Dash, scoring five valuable points in doing so. Still Baker needed to finish at least second or better to make sure he won the championship, so there was still a lot of pressure on him going into the main. He got the job done. He finished runner up to Wiles in the Grand National and that was all it took. Baker outpointed Wiles by two, 69-67, to wrap up his first National title as a pro. sition. And all was well in his heat race – initially – as he built a solid lead. But then it all went wrong when it stopped running. "We don't know what happened to it," Wiles later said. "It started later on, so who knows? It's just one of those things." Wiles went out and crushed it "It was an amazing day," Baker said of winning the four-race GNC Singles title, in spite of not winning a race in the series. "I came in with the lead, but it took every ounce of dedication, hard work and determination to make this happen. With losing that 19 points at Daytona and to come back here, hop on a new ride with Fun Mart KTM, with Junior Jackson building the bike, I can't thank them enough. To know that I had to stay close enough to Henry Wiles to win this championship, at Peoria of all places, with no more races left… That break in the heat race [of Wiles' bike] was what gave it to me, but I had 19 points taken away at Daytona for a deal that wasn't exactly what I thought was correct. So I can't exactly feel sorry for him by any means.