I rode the 250 because it was
pretty good in the tight woods. In
the [top-gear cornfields], I'd lose
a little bit, but it wasn't enough to
cost me the race.
"This race is completely dif-
ferent from any race there is!
It's probably one of the hardest
races I have done. I fell five or
six times, but everyone was fall-
ing [because that first loop was
so slick]. We were in a train—
with me, Toby Cleveland, Cody
Barnes, James Jenkins—and we
were switching positions non-
stop! Everyone was crashing; it
was so slick, no one could keep
it together. I had a lot of fun the
second lap. The first lap, I was
struggling because of the slick-
ness; the second lap, it tacked
up a lot—the track was good
[then]. I was hoping it was going
to get better [than the first lap],
but I didn't expect it to tack up
as good as it did."
Jenkins ended up second-
fastest on the day aboard his
Bell's Electric/Fly Racing FX 250.
He said, "Me, Toby, Cody and
Jhak rode together for most of
the first lap. I went down and
lost a bunch of time after that. I
couldn't follow the flags and got
lost in just about every field the
last 10 miles of the track, but the
second lap was, like Tanner said,
all-time! It could not have been
any better; the ruts were insanely
good!"
Liqui Moly Beta's Whipple had
to come back from a poor start
and multiple crashes in the first
15 miles. But the nature of The
Race meant he had plenty of
time to regroup and regain lost
ground aboard his Hall's Cycles/
G2/FXR 480 RR.
"It was a super-good time,"
Whipple said. "Like I say, the
biggest thing about The Race is
WIND
IN THE
P54
Former winner and
local hero Tanner
Whipple refused to let
a bad first lap dictate
his race and kept
moving forward. When
conditions improved
for lap two, he regained
enough ground to end
up third overall.
