FLAT TRACK
AMA GRAND NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP
ROUND 15/SEPTEMBER 27, 2014
CALISTOGA SPEEDWAY/CALISTOGA, CALIFORNIA
P94
unless they're prepared to be ex-
tinct.
"You gotta get that out of the
way," Baker said. "If you don't
get that out of the way it ends
your career so to speak. If you
can't overcome an injury, you
can't overcome mechanicals,
you can't overcome switching to
a new team and having a little bit
of hard time getting to gel right –
you're over. So you have to do it.
You've got to put your head down
and make that happen."
You could see the relief in his
eyes.
"It's a sense of relief," Baker
said. "It's like a monkey's on your
shoulder poking you in your ear
and bugging you until it happens.
So it was really good to be able to
make everything come together
tonight. For all of us. We're all not
necessarily doubting ourselves,
but you get into a funk and you
don't want to let yourself stay in
that funk for too long. It's good to
drag yourself back out of the hole
and feel good."
Smoke Out
Smith came into Northern Cali-
fornia's wine country with a nine-
point lead in the Grand National
Championship. He left with a
huge blow to his title chances
thanks to the oil leak and black
flag. With a 13-point gap to Jared
Mees, who was promoted to sec-
ond when Smith was DQ'd, and
just Pomona left to run, the fat
lady hasn't sung, but she's warm-
ing up.
And to add insult to injury, Cal-
istoga isn't a track that suits him
yet he had it sorted out and had
charged his way up to second
before learning he was disquali-
fied.
"It's huge," Smith said about
the disappointment. "This isn't
my type of track and to be leading
the points and something like that
to happen… just pure bad luck. I
don't really know what it was on
my bike that caused it to smoke
Smith (42) and Halbert (7) were
locked in a battle when Smith's bike
started smoking.
