Cycle News

VOL. 50 ISSUE 35 SEPTEMBER 4, 2013 Disaster Averted An incident in Saturday's race was one of the scariest moments in recent memory and very nearly took out the leaders of the race. The turn-four incident happened about three-quarters of the way through Saturday's Grand National when Bryan Smith accidently hit the kill switch on his Crosley Radio/Howerton Motorsports Kawasaki in front of the lead pack of riders. Smith was hit from behind by JD Beach, who in turn veered into the path of Jake Johnson and those two collided. Beach glanced off the outside wall and the motor on Johnson's Lloyd Brothers Ducati died after a crank sensor was ripped off by the contact. Smith explained that a tear off landed on his right hand and that it had worked its way between his gloves and leathers and was Brandon Robinson swept the weekend, winning both Nationals on his Kawasaki. weekend. We were perfect all weekend. Fast qualifier, won the heats, the Dash, the mains… it's just surreal for sure." As a result of the perfect weekend, Robinson catapulted from a relatively distant fifth in the standings to a surging third - just three points behind Smith in second and only 13 points out of the series lead. Robinson, who before Sunday's win, would say he was looking forward to next season, finally believes he has a realistic shot at this year's title. "There's a good chance now, I think," Robinson said when stinging him as it buzzed at high frequency from wind buffeting. "I reached over to get the thing off my hand and accidently hit the kill switch," Smith said. "I flipped it back on, but the bike died for just a split second. I was hoping everyone could avoid me, but I felt an impact and was just hoping no one went down." Both Beach and Johnson said things happened too quickly to think. It was all reaction and fortunately all the riders trailing were able to stay on two wheels in spite of the collisions. To view a video of the incident, click on the following link: https://www.facebook. com/video/embed?video_ id=10151831617315498%22%20 width=%221280%22%20 height=%22720%22%20 frameborder=%220%22%3E%3C/ iframe%3E asked if he thought he could win the championship. "Right now I'm still behind and the biggest thing is just concentrate on winning races. That's the only way to close that gap for sure. We're going to do our best these next two rounds to win the Dashes and win the mains and wherever that puts us at the end of the year is where it is. That's all I can ask for." Robinson won the Memorial Day weekend make-up race on Saturday and Sunday's Labor Day weekend classic final in very different fashions. On Saturday he took over the lead from teammate JD Beach on lap six and within a couple of laps had broken the draft and pulled away to a convincing 5.299-second mar- P63 Briefly... were involved in a big crash in turn three during qualifying on Saturday. "Jethro's bike blew up in front of me and I had nowhere to go and had to lay it down and go into the air fence," explained Baer. Both riders were banged up, but not seriously injured in the crash. Multi-time AMA Grand National Champion Chris Carr was on hand at Springfield this weekend fresh from speed runs at the Bonneville Salt Flats. Carr reported that he had one clean run in Bonneville, but the bike wouldn't go into the top gear. "We ran 323 [mph] in third [gear], so I'm pretty encouraged that we have a bike capable of getting the record. We'll go back out for the top-speed shootout in a couple of weeks and hopefully the weather will be better, the course conditions will be good and we'll see what we can do." Carr has twice set the motorcycle land speed record on the BUB Seven streamliner in the past and hopes to regain it this year. Brandon Robinson's wins in Springfield made him the champion of the K&N Midwest Challenge. The special award presented by K&N went to the top three points earners from last month's Peoria TT and this weekend's doubleheader. The $750 first-place prize went to Robinson (59 points), with the secondplace Beach's 55 points earning him $500 and third-place Baker's 52 points good for $250. Robert Pearson raced three brands of motorcycles over the Springfield weekend. He started on a Weirbach Racing Harley-Dacontinued on next page

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