VOL. 50 ISSUE 32 AUGUST 13, 2013
Shaun Russell (hidden) leads JD
Beach (95) and Bauman in their
battle for third. The spot would
ultimately go to Beach.
in the second semi, winning by
8.5 seconds in the 10-lap race,
but in spite of that excellent performance he would still have to
start from the last row – inside
row three with six riders abreast
making up the 18-rider starting
grid.
The start of the 25-lap National
I'm excited as can be."
The Grand National Singles
Championship this year consisted
of four rounds – two short tracks at
Daytona and then the Castle Rock
and Peoria TTs.
was a bit of a stunner. The oldest rider in the field Shaun Russell, 34, who hasn't raced a National in nearly a year, nailed the
holeshot and broke into the early
lead. It was the feel-good storyline of the weekend - semi-retired
racer leading one of the biggest
races of the year - but storybook
met reality when Briar Bauman
took over the lead on lap four.
Bauman then held the lead
for two laps before succumbing
to Baker. Baker ran the point for
four laps before Wiles caught him
on lap 10 going into turn one.
Wiles had one major moment
though before getting into the
lead. When he caught Bauman,
who was running in second at the
Brad Baker's win in the pointspaying Dash For Cash meant that
his second-place finish in the
National earned him the Singles
title for 2013.
P57
Briefly...
to make the transition from an ultrahigh-speed road course like Miller
Motorsports Park to an extremely
technical TT dirt track like Peoria,
Beach said it wasn't. "I've been racing dirt track since I was four years
old," Beach said. "It's just like riding a bicycle. You just get on the
bike and go." Beach's previous
best Peoria TT finish was fourth in
2012.
His Peoria TT victory marked the
first win of the season for Henry
Wiles. It was a milestone win, not
only that it broke the previous Peoria winning streak record held by
Chris Carr, the victory also moved
Wiles into the top 10 on the all-time
AMA Grand National wins list. He
now has 24 AMA Grand National
wins to his credit. That ties him
with the legendary Dick Mann for
10th. Wiles is also second among
all-time wins among active riders.
Only Kenny Coolbeth Jr., with 29
wins, is ahead of him.
Henry Wiles doesn't seem thrilled
with having Jake Johnson as a
new teammate on the Lloyd Brothers Motorsports team. Wiles said
having a second rider might turn
things to "chaos" with the team before tempering his remarks. "We're
going to see how it works out in
about a week," he said. "We'll worry about all that then. "It might help
with the development of the bike
[Ducati], I don't know. We're going
to find out what it's all about in a
week. That's a fact."
David Lloyd commented on Jake
Johnson joining alongside Henry
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