VOL. 51 ISSUE 30 JULY 29, 2014 P81
every race. I do drive to probably
four or five races, but I mostly fly
now."
With losing the factory ride af-
ter holding it for seven seasons,
you would think that maybe the
Coolbeth revival has a little extra
motivation - some resentment.
Something to prove.
"Not really," Coolbeth said. "I'm
not going to bash them. They've
made me who I am. It was good
at times, but it was also bad. We
left on good terms. It is what it is.
You need to take the good with
the bad and you move on, don't
stew on it and just try to find good
people to do your thing."
And so far doing his thing
has put him in the running for
the 2014 AMA Grand National
Championship. In fact, Coolbeth
had been in the lead until Hager-
stown – that's where his lead in
the race went pear-shaped when
his bike blew up. So his point
lead went from nine points ahead
of Jake Johnson to third place in
the standings - five behind lead-
er Jared Mees and four behind
Johnson. But it's still a long sea-
son ahead and with a whole lot
of racing left - especially a whole
lot of back-to-back racing ahead
(five rounds in a row), so Cool-
beth's still in the hunt. And he's
most definitely not throwing in the
towel.
"We lost quite a bit of points the
other weekend blowing up, lead-
ing, but we're going to just keep
our head down," he said. "We
just need to stay consistent. I feel
like we can do it. We've got all the
tools; we just need a little luck.
It all takes luck. It all takes good
people. And it takes hard work.
So we've got it all. Our bad days
have to be top four, top five and
our good days obviously wins.
Just be consistent and hopefully
we have that big number one on
our bike next year."
Another thing that Coolbeth
and the team have in their favor
is that he considers himself a
clay-track rider and in the string
of upcoming races, he knows
there are some that play to his
strengths.
"We've got some good races
for me coming up that I enjoy go-
ing to," Coolbeth said. "So I think
that's a bonus. Yeah, just keep
plugging away. We still got a long
season right now. Just need to
keep our equipment going and
me going."
And there lies the other fac-
tor in racing, healthy machine,
