VOL. 52 ISSUE 26 JUNE 30, 2015 P127
will, pitching it into a turn of
deep, piled-up loam at triple-digit
speed, struggling to see the
ruts and your fellow competitors
through a dust cloud lit bright
orange by late afternoon sun
and you can imagine why riders
were calling on every last ounce
of skill to get through.
Yet somehow former Grand
National champ Brad Baker
found a way to excel in the worst
of conditions aboard his fac-
tory Harley-Davidson XR750.
Baker plowed through the deep
ridges of loose dirt with amazing
confidence. His bike bouncing
through the ruts, often while in
the middle of a full-lock slide.
The bravery and skill of Baker
earned him a convincing victory
at the Lima Half-Mile, his first vic-
tory of the season.
You could tell Baker was es-
pecially proud of this victory.
"I'm coming off having my
Briefly...
in his heat race. "The bike didn't run
from the get-go," Halbert said. "It
was good to put myself in a hole like
that to make me work for it. I found
out how hard I could push. In prac-
tice I didn't really feel like hanging
it out there on the edge, but when I
had to I did it."
Kenny Coolbeth Jr. and his wife
Jennifer are expecting their first baby
to be born as early as this week.
Tristan Avery, who scored a GNC2
podium result at Sacramento on his
Ron Ayers Motorsports Honda, hit
the fence outside of turn four halfway
through his Semi. He was transport-
ed to the hospital with injuries to his
right foot.
Brad Baker and Bryan Smith came
together in the Dash for Cash and
the impact knocked the chain off
Smith's Kawasaki causing him to
DNF the Dash, which was won by
Baker over Henry Wiles and Bran-
don Robinson.
Lima marked the debut of the Dun-
lop flat track tires made in Dunlop's
Buffalo, New York factory. The new
tires are patterned off the long es-
tablish Goodyear molds. Dunlop's
Buffalo facility is the only place in
the U.S. where motorcycle tires are
manufactured according to Dunlop's
marketing manager Mike Manning.
Points leader coming into Lima, Kenny
Coolbeth Jr., failed to qualify for the
Lima main, but he used a provisional
start to make the grid for the national.
Brad Baker clocked the fastest
time in timed qualifying with a lap
ERT Racing Honda closed out the
podium on Sunday with Hunter
Edwards on the number 93F UMD
Automated Systems Honda and
Bronson Bauman on the number 30Z
R&D Machine Honda rounding out
the top five, respectively.
Nick Armstrong led the GNC2
point standings coming to Lima but
crashed in the LCQ, keeping him out
of the main event.
J.R. Addison took home the GNC2
win at Lima, his first of the season.
Briar Bauman (14) took a page out
of Jeffrey Carver's (23) book and
went low to work his way to the final
spot on the podium.
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