VOL. 52 ISSUE 23 JUNE 9, 2015 P69
Briefly...
just no acceleration there," Mees
said. "At first it felt like the chain
fell off but what happened was the
knockoff that holds the sprocket on
came undone and lost the drive."
After a dominant performance in
the second heat race, it looked like
TOBC Doc Henry Smalls Racing's
Jake Johnson would be the man
to beat in the final. Unfortunately
Johnson didn't get the all-important
holeshot and finished fifth. A little
disappointing for the former AMA
Grand National champ, but he was
happy to be there in the first place
after his twins ride fell through be-
fore the first race at Springfield a few
weeks ago, forcing him to scramble
for a ride for the X Games. "I got to
thank Doc Henry Smalls," Johnson
said. "It was his personal, basically
trophy that sits at Colin's Boot Camp
[Texas Tornado Boot Camp] and he
was nice enough to let me ride it. I
got down here last Saturday night,
and the bike hadn't started in like
two years. So me and Joe P [fellow
Texas Tornado Boot Camp instructor
Joe Prussiano], we did some work
on it, shined it up and got it running.
I'm disappointed, I definitely wanted
to be on the box, but for the limited
amount of time and being last min-
ute and kind of—I guess, I could
say unemployed at the moment for
a ride, I'm happy with it." The rest
of the TOBC crew were on hand to
help Johnson for the event, includ-
ing the World champ himself—Colin
Edwards.
Riders and fans alike left the event
pretty happy. The grandstand was
packed and everyone was on their
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really tight in the corners with
a perfect what you call paper
clip."
But different from the norm
isn't necessarily a bad thing.
"It was just a little different
than what we usually run week
in and week out—which made
it cool because that's what X
Games is about," Mees added.
"You look at the events that X
Games has and they string a
lot of different stuff together to
make it unique. It was cool. It
was different."
So yes, it was not ideal racing
Reigning AMA
Grand National
Champion
Jared Mees
came just short
of the gold and
went from first
to last with
a technical
problem with
a half a lap
remaining in
the race.
