Cycle News

VOL. 51 ISSUE 29 JULY 22, 2014 P119 Carr pulled away to an almost four-second lead over Shobert by the checkered flag. "I haven't been beat that bad on a mile in a long time," Shobert said after the race. "That's the hardest I've had to ride for second in a long time. I thought I could catch him, I really did, but he was going a little better than me. Chris deserved this one." It was Carr's first National win on a Mile, and one that was very popular with the Sacramento crowd. Carr was one of their own, having grown up just 45 miles away and cutting his teeth racing on the dusty bowls of California's Central Valley. And let's not forget that Grand Nationals for the most part were and remain a very Harley partisan crowd and Carr was considered an underdog, not only against the factory Honda's, but against the main factory Harley squad as well. Carr credited his victory to the tuning work of Lawwill and C.R. Axtell, who put in hours on the test bench seeing how to make the motors breath with the new restrictor plates. Today Carr said one of the things he most clear- ly recalls of the '87 race was the epic party after- wards. It seems a bunch of his friends from school came up from Stockton and they all got a massive two-story hotel suite and had a blow-out bash cel- ebrating his win that took a few days to recover from. "I do remember that was the first of the restric- tor races and Mert Lawwill was pretty happy with what he had seen preparing for the race," Carr remembers. "I had a great night. The bike was working awesome and I smoked 'em and won by a straightaway to get my first National win on a mile. Needless to say the party ensued afterwards. The rest of the night is pretty foggy to this day." The popular narrative is that the restrictor rule chased Honda out of flat track, that may or may not be the case, but if you look at the numbers the restrictor rule did bring parity back into the competition on the miles. In '87 Honda went on to win four miles to Harley's three. Honda, with Shobert, also went on to win that year's dirt track championship in a squeaker over Parker. Carr will return to his home National, the Sac- ramento Mile, this Saturday, some 27 years after his first victory, there to be honored alongside Jay Springsteen. The two are going to have an exhibition ride together: Springer on one of Jar- ed Mees' Harley's and Carr on a Zanotti Racing XR750. Springsteen said he still remembers how to draft on Carr all these years later and also went on to say he hopes Carr knows how to respect his elders. For Carr's part he said he'll cherish the moment. "For me whenever I was behind Jay I was watching poetry in motion," Carr gushed. "He was just the most enjoyable guy. He was so loose. He looked like he was having fun every time he rode a motorcycle, that's how easy he made it look. So to be able to relive for a few moments what I got to experience coming up through the ranks racing together is going to be real cool. I look forward to it and I assure you there will be a grin on my face the whole time." This will also be the first Sacramento Mile with- out restrictors since the year before Carr's win in '87. And it's ironic. These days AMA Pro Rac- ing did away with the restrictors again to bring back parity on the miles. The Kawasaki, mostly the one ridden by Bryan Smith, was deemed a little too "competitive" on the big ovals. It will be interesting to see the results of the new rules on the long straights of Sacramento. Will Smith put the Kawasaki on top again and become the first rider in race history to win the event four times straight? Or will the now unrestricted Harley's make a repeat of history and put an XR750 back atop the podium as Carr accomplished all those years earlier? CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives

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