INTERVIEW I AFT SUPERTWINS GRAND NATIONAL CHAMPION JARED MEES
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Those unique ties to the past
are more than an abstraction.
That connection is on display
each time another national gets
added to its annals. The combi-
nation of its simplistic, primarily
oval-based,
layouts with the de-
ceptively complex variables that
make up its varying
and ever-
evolving dirt surfaces has kept
the basics of the high-speed
artform impressively intact over
the decades. A century of dirt
track racing has seen its appeal
unblemished, centered around
blistering speeds, inch-close
racing, and a confined, fully
viewable battleground.
That's still true because the
discipline's underlying physics
has yet to be solved, hacked,
and reformulated by engineers
and computers to the degree
so many other forms of racing
have, remaining as much black
magic as a science.
While the endless toil of crafty
tuners in search of incremental
gains continues to yield quantifi
-
able results, Progressive Ameri-
can Flat Track has a firm grip on
its
claim as "America's Original
Extreme Sport."
That fact makes the sport's
reverence of its history a key pil-
lar of its relevance, right along-
side the unpredictable, ultra-
tight action that
originally made
it popular so many decades
ago. As such, there's an added
Mees' ninth title came down to the
last race. When the pressure is on,
it's tough to knock off a veteran
champion like Mees.
