Cycle News

FLAT TRACK AMA GRAND NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND 12/AUGUST 23, 2014 COLONIAL DOWNS/NEW KENT, VIRGINIA P74 impending rain, Johnson's team decided to switch him to their Harley-Davidson for the semi. But to illustrate how rough the Mega Mile is on bikes, that bike died as well, forcing Johnson to take a provisional start and move to a third machine - the team's Kawa- saki, which hadn't been touched since Sacramento. Mees had clutch problems with his Rogers Racing Harley- Davidson just before the start of the National and had to franti- cally go to a back-up XR750, a bike he'd ridden earlier and one that had transmission problems. That led to a situation where the penalty row at the very back of the grid happened to consist of the three leading contenders in the championship – Mees, Smith and Johnson. Smith was there for jumping the start, even My Own Race: 42 BRYAN SMITH 1ST Bryan Smith continued to be the rider to beat on the miles, winning three of the four held so far this season. He'll be looking to pad his newfound series lead next weekend in Springfield. Smith was upset that he was relegated to the penalty line for jumping the start even though the red light didn't come on indicating he'd broken the starting line beam. "I flinched a little bit at the jump, but they have laser beams for a reason and the green light came on," Smith said of the starting-line controversy. "I needed to get to the lead in a hurry, so I was on the gas for sure. I got a good start, but a couple of guys parked in the turn to reach for tear-offs. The first couple laps were a blackout; I used all my tearoffs. I finally got into third and my bike was kind of getting hot, but I just put my head down and tried to stay out of the roost. And once I got in the lead, I could kind of ride my line, and, obviously, check out. That was not the way I wanted to do that. I think I had more dirt inside of my helmet than on the outside." 55 JAKE SHOEMAKER 2ND Jake Shoemaker is suddenly emerging as a rising star in the series after scoring his second podium of the season (and third of his career), following a third at Hagerstown earlier this summer. "It feels great," Shoemaker said. "My best finish this year was a third at Hagerstown, and to come here with a second and beat that on a track that I honestly wasn't that comfortable with, just knowing I'm on a 700cc bike, I'm down on horsepower, to put it up in sec- ond, on the box with all these guys, with what I feel is lesser equipment, it really means a lot. It's just awesome. I had no idea where I was on the track and then I finally broke through a bit and saw Bryan [Smith] up ahead and I knew nobody was ahead of him and I realized I was in third. I got past Brad [Baker] and thought, 'Wow, I'm in second!' From then on out I knew I wasn't going to catch Bryan, so I was counting the laps for the race to get done." 5 JAKE JOHNSON 3RD Jake Johnson remains winless in 2014, yet his consistent finishes have kept him in the championship hunt. He re- markably hopped on the Ramspur Winery/Lloyd Brothers Kawasaki at the last moment after both his Ducati and Har- ley-Davidson broke. "Coming from the fourth row, Bryan won the thing, so I can't complain too bad about being back there," Johnson said. "It was one hell of a race. The first five laps, I couldn't see a thing… finally, things fanned out a little bit and I was able to start picking them off and work my way up through. A lot of 'coulda, shoulda, woul- das.' For how the day went, to come out with a podium, I'm pretty happy." 1 BRAD BAKER 4TH Brad Baker got the biggest cheers of the day when he foot paddled his way across the finish line after his factory Har- ley-Davidson died on the final lap. "That was a tough race," he said. "I rode absolutely as hard as I could and I never gave that XR750 an inch; I was pretty brutal to it. I got out front, but these new motorcycles coming up have a lot of horsepower. Bryan [Smith] went by me like I was tied to a post. I heard him and all of a sudden he went blistering by. I was battling clutch issues going back and forth between gears. I never backed off and with two laps to go I could tell the bike was tightening up. On the last lap between three and four it locked up. I knew I was going to have to disintegrate the motor to make it to the finish. I shifted her to second and pinned it. The thing was making some God- awful noises. I shifted into third thinking maybe I could get it to the finish line and then it locked up. I busted out my Fred Flintstone feet and started doggie paddling and it was good enough to beat Jared [Mees] to the line." 9 JARED MEES 5TH Jared Mees had what could have been a disastrous day, but his savvy and quick work by Kenny Tolbert and the rest of Mees' crew helped him salvage a decent finish. "The trans- mission was pretty much smoked out of the bike I raced in my heat race," Mees explained. "I went to my backup bike and on the warm-up lap the clutch was slipping real bad, so I had to come back and jump on the bike that had the tranny problems and go to the back row because I was switching bikes. I nursed the thing off the start and by the time I got through turn one everybody was already through turn two. I was dead last and put on a charge. I felt like it was a pretty solid ride for where I came from."

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