AMA GRAND NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP
VOL. 51 ISSUE 11 MARCH 18, 2014 P51
Tough luck continued to dog
the defending- series champ
Brad Baker. After an unusual
turn of events he was DQ'd from
Thursday night's race for a clear
rulebook violation, but one that
could be viewed as a technical-
ity – a weirdly similar scenario
he faced at Daytona last year.
Then there was the hugely
popular semi win by 49-year-old
Hoosier Danny Ingram, a two-
time Daytona Short Track winner
of the early '90s, who left the
sport for years after a brain in-
jury. He had the crowd on their
feet Friday night by winning his
semi in a great battle with JR
Schnabel to put his Twist Grip
Motorsports Kawasaki in the
Main.
Speaking of Schnabel; he too
left the sport after a terrible crash
two years ago at the Springfield
(Illinois) TT. He didn't feel quite
right leaving racing on those
terms, so after a good winter of
ice racing he convinced his wife
that they might as well take a
working vacation to Florida and
JR could leave the sport on his
own terms and on two wheels.
He accomplished the feat by
putting the Moose Racing Hon-
da in the field for the final on Fri-
day night - much to the delight of
the crowd.
Bauman's Breakout
When Briar Bauman burst onto
the scene in Pro Singles halfway
through the 2011 season he was
Briefly...
known for his long domination of the
Peoria TT was lost most of the day at
Daytona. He crashed in his semi and
didn't even qualify for the National in
Thursday's race. He was forced to
take a provisional start just to get into
the National, but things came around
for him in the final. Starting from the
back of the 19-rider field, he was up
to 13th by the end of the first lap. Five
laps in and he was up to eighth. By
the checkered flag he had made it all
the way up to sixth in a major show
of passing skills. "I knew even using
a provisional we weren't as far out of
the chase as what it looked like in
qualifying," Wiles said. "I struggled
in qualifying because we couldn't
get the bike set up. We kept chasing
the track, chasing the track. It might
have been good we ran a semi. So
fourth row to sixth – it was a pretty
good night for us. We clicked off a
lot of people."
Mikey Martin missed Daytona after
breaking his ankle in one of the pre-
liminary Bike Week races at Barber-
ville. A friend reported he had sur-
gery to plate the ankle and said he
should be ready to race by Spring-
field in May. Also absent from the
season openers was 2012 Daytona
Short Track winner Johnny Lewis,
who stayed home with his wife for
the birth of their son, Maxsen.
The track was watered so much be-
fore Thursday night's main that offi-
cials gave the riders four warm-up
laps to help dry it out a bit before the
start of the race. The watering was
an effort to open up passing lines on
the track.
Thursday night's Grand National
was red flagged after two laps when
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