Cycle News

VOL. 51 ISSUE 29 JULY 22, 2014 P67 and when the lights went out, he put a block pass on fellow Wash- ingtonian Brad Baker on the fac- tory Harley-Davidson to take the lead. Halbert even looked like he might start to pull a gap. But that was before Smith caught up, took the lead and Halbert fell back. "I thought Sam [Halbert] was going to be tough to beat today," Smith said. "He was fast all day, THE LITTLE, RACY HALF MILE With the rough first day of poor weather combined with the fact that the track was unknown territory as this was the first-ever National held at the facility, the big question go- ing into Sunday's racing was… what would the track conditions be like? "The track definitely dried out from the first practice until the main event by far," race-winner Jared Mees said. "It was a little rough, but you know what, a really racy track. And for the fans it was cool." "It was just a weird surface," Bryan Smith said. "Normally when it's rough like that on clay it's tacky, but it really wasn't tacky, but it was not slick. It was kind of like tacky, slick. So it made it hard to ride because you couldn't just slide and gas it and go around the corner because it was rough. But there wasn't enough traction to really stay hooked up so it made it pretty technical really - because you couldn't just roll into the corners. You were kind of getting tossed around. But it was good because it made some good racing up front. It made a lot of different line choices. It wasn't one groove where everybody sucked to a lot of times. Overall ended up being all right I would say, but not the best by any means." Jake Johnson concurred that track was tricky, but provided for some good racing. "It was definitely tough, there was definitely a fine line between that edge of how hard you could push," Johnson said. "Cause you'd go out there and try to give it a hundred per- cent, you'd end up sticking it through the fence. It was hard mentally to stay calm, be smooth and do your thing. But it was good. I think it was an ex- citing race; there was a lot of passing going on and a lot of good racing. For the deck we were handed, it turned out pretty good. "It was kind of rough and slick and tacky; it kind of had a little everything in one," Johnson added. "It was definitely a bit different. Just looking at the times throughout the day, like in qualifying the top four were pretty close, within a tenth or two, and then it dropped like a half second to fifth place. It was hard to be consistent. This is a pretty small track for what we normally run on twins, but all in all I thought it was good." For Brad Baker, the track was home. Well, at least it was in his home state. "It was a little bit difficult condi- tions," Baker said. "The track, it was pretty much short tracking on a twin tonight. And then it wasn't the smooth- est thing in the world. It didn't look all that rough, but it just kind of had little ripples all the way through that made it hard to keep the wheels on the ground and also made for a pretty slick groove. It definitely was tricky between how short it was, the bumps in certain different places and then just being really slick. It was definitely a finesse track and there's a pretty big reason why the riders that were up front were up there. Because it takes quite a bit of experience to have that much control; how much mind control to know that, 'Hey I want to be able to ride this thing hard, but if I do ride hard I'll end up going backwards.' It's more about being calm and almost going slow to go fast, than it was riding hard." Grays Harbor Raceway's tough track conditions – rough, tacky and slippery surface combined with muscling twins on a track shorter than usual – made for great racing.

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