VOL. 51 ISSUE 29 JULY 22, 2014 P69
into three, but I didn't know it was
going to be as intense as what it
was. It ended up being [Sammy]
Halbert running it up underneath
pretty aggressively. He leaned
on me and I leaned on him and
laid quite a bit of rubber down the
left side of my leg and eventually
my front end started to push and
wash out and was forced to just
stand it up and let him go on by."
So for Baker it was give way or
end up in the wall. And for Hal-
bert, it was only a case of not giv-
ing way.
"On the last lap Brad [Baker]
got a little sideways coming off
of turn two and I got all the way
up under him and drag raced
down the back straightaway,"
Halbert explained. "He could tell
I was there and he tried to kind of
pinch me off. And I just, me and
him have done this like a million
times… there's no give in either
one of us. He was trying to pinch
me off down low and I was so far
up under him that I wasn't going
to back out and so just kind of
took the position. And we both
ran a little wide because of it, but
I'm happy to get the spot."
So Halbert went on to salvage
his race with fourth, while Baker
also lost ground to Zanotti Rac-
ing's Kenny Coolbeth in the scuf-
fle and had to settle for sixth.
The other man on the Zanotti
Racing Harley, Stevie Bonsey,
ended up seventh followed by
a pair of Kawasakis – ridden by
Kirkland Racing's Robert Pear-
son and Weirbach Racing's Jake
Shoemaker. Canadian Doug Law-
rence rounded out the top 10 on a
privateer Harley-Davidson. CN
GRAND NATIONAL
1. Jared Mees (Harley-Davidson)
2. Bryan Smith (Kawasaki)
3. Jake Johnson (Harley-Davidson)
4. Sammy Halbert (Harley-Davidson)
5. Kenny Coolbeth (Harley-Davidson)
6. Brad Baker (Harley-Davidson)
7. Stevie Bonsey (Harley-Davidson)
8. Robert Pearson (Kawasaki)
9. Jake Shoemaker (Kawaski)
10. Doug Lawrence (Harley-Davidson)
Once Smith passed Halbert (7) for the lead,
Coolbeth (2) and Mees (9) followed suit.
