Cycle News

VOL. 52 ISSUE 26 JUNE 30, 2015 P131 just packed it in," Coolbeth said shaking his head after the race. "I was running around at the back and couldn't see a thing, so I wasn't going to score many points anyway." The result was Coolbeth lost the series points lead he en- joyed coming into Lima, round five of the 15-round champion- ship. Defending series champ Jared Mees, who finished fourth, emerged the new leader in the standings. Halbert also slipped past Coolbeth in the points. Mees now leads Halbert by three points (77-74), while Coolbeth fell to third with 69. The GNC1 Championship battle is still very early and very wide open. Just 14 points separate first-place Mees from Bryan Smith, who's sixth in the stand- ings. The race was originally sched- uled for Saturday evening, but inclement weather forced it to be pushed back. Sunday's weather proved ideal, breezy with temps in the 70s and a bright sun over- head. Unfortunately, in spite of rain the day before and constant watering, the breeze and sun baked the top layer causing the dust. The lower layers of the dirt were still soft and that resulted in turns that would go rutty after a few laps at speed. There was nothing track maintenance could do but take frequent breaks from racing to smooth out and water the track. It made for a long day of racing, but the Lima faithful stayed, watched the national and left with a layer of chalky taupe- colored dust covering them. Initially it was Wiles breaking out to an early lead. He held it until Kyle Johnson's turn-two crash brought out the red. On the restart, Wiles and Baker battled back and forth, with early he found the going tougher once the track started getting rougher. "Early in the day I don't think I could have run that bike up front," Wiles said. "But the whole Zanotti team, Michelle DiSalvo and myself, we all worked good together to get the bike working a lot better. When I was up front I thought I might be able to hold on and win the thing, but when the smooth lines went away it made it real difficult to ride the bike. I gave it everything I could, but it's a little frustrating to know we're capable of winning these types of races and just not being able to do it. We have a little bit of a baseline now for cushion tracks. We can take that now and move forward and build on it." 7 SAMMY HALBERT 2ND Sammy Halbert earned his best result of the season with a second. He found himself coming from behind all day and he did it again in the main to get all the way up to the runner-up position at the end. "I didn't get the greatest of starts," Halbert said. "So that took away the line I wanted to run. I wanted to go up high, but I would have gotten roosted so bad up there. I had to take my time and ride a more conservative line for a while. By the time things spread out I tried the high line, but it was pretty rough by then. I used it to get up to third and then I got up to Henry I was beat up using that high line, so I finally dropped down low and got even lower to the bottom at the end. I was happy to get second. I always want to win here, but being a day race it was different." 23 JEFFREY CARVER JR. 5TH Jeffrey Carver Jr. earned his best finish of the season in fifth on the Don's Kawasaki. "I found a really good line on the very bottom of the racetrack and just kind of stuck with it," Carver said. "I just kept working my way forward. I saw Mees up there and even the front pack so I knew we were really making up some time. It was dusty and rough, but all my training paid off. I'm pretty happy. I'm pretty sure I won the hard charger award, so I look forward to going home and racing Du Quoin." 42 BRYAN SMITH 8TH Championship contender Bryan Smith was much faster than his eighth-place finish at Lima; in fact, he probably should have been challenging for a podium. But his ride was screwed up by something holding his throttle wide open. Smith nearly pulled out of the race at that point. "The second lap after the restart something hung up my throttle wide open going into turn one," he said. "I pulled in the clutch, shut the bike off, and turned it on. It was still hung wide open, so I almost pulled off the track. Something popped loose and it took back off. It did it one more time going into turn three. After that I was just kind of frazzled because I thought the throttle was going to stick. I don't know what it was, probably a rock in there or something. I was just kind of cruising because I didn't go high like I wanted to because I thought I might go crashing through the fence. The last five laps I decided to try to get a couple guys to at least make something up." (Left to right) Bauman, Baker and Sammy Halbert topped the podium at Lima.

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