Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/538021
VOL. 52 ISSUE 27 JULY 7, 2015 P111 spending time up front. Mees and Baer were also in that group. By lap nine that lead sextet had been whittled down to a quartet with Smith leading Mees, Baker and Coolbeth. That's when Wiles crashed out coming out of turn two, bringing out the red flag. He was up and okay. The restart established a very different race. Cool- beth got a flyer and put his head down to try to get away. He actually got the biggest lead of the night on lap 12 when he held a .444 of a second advantage on Smith, Baker, Lloyd Brothers Ducati's Johnny Lewis and the rest of the field. Mees missed a shift on the restart and ran ninth on lap 11 and was forced to rapidly work his way back to the lead group. He broke into third by lap 14 in one of the best charges of the night. Baker's bike was sick and it went up in smoke with five laps to go. That left the leading trio of Coolbeth, Mees and Smith to battle it out to the checkered flag. Lewis and the Ducati had dropped just a bit off the pace, but were heading up the rest of the pack. On the final lap, Mees led coming out of four. Coolbeth broke high and Smith went low and the trio came across the line simultaneously in the clos- est three-way finish in years. "I saw Jared [Mees] celebrating on the cool- down lap," Smith said. "And I was like, 'Wait a min- ute, I'm not so sure about that.' Still, I didn't know Briefly... son, as well as the Triumph of Bran- don Robinson and Cody Johncox on his Harley. Kayl Kolkman made the main, but did not complete a lap in the main. Henry Wiles crashed out in turn two, which brought out the red flag 10 laps in. Jake Shoemaker crashed coming out of turn one with two laps to go and Doug Lawrence limped home to finish a lap down in 10th when his Glidden Racing Kawa- saki's motor went sour. Shawn Baer showed amazing speed on the SBR/Straight Arrow KTM 990 Super Duke at Du Quoin. He was third fastest in timed quali- fying and finished a close second, nipped at the line by Willie McCoy in the fastest heat race of the night. Unfortunately clutch issues caught up with Baer in the main. Brad Baker won the Dash for Cash and the point that goes with it. Baker nipped Bryan Smith and Henry Wiles to take the Dash victory. The Dash also set the front row of the grid for the 25-lap main with Baker starting from the pole. Smith, Wiles, Kenny Coolbeth Jr., Willie McCoy and Shawn Baer rounded out the front row starters. Road Racer Danny Eslick was back racing the Grand Nationals at Du Quoin. Eslick was 27th of 37 riders in timed qualifying on his Aaron Lind- fors Harley-Davidson with a time of 39.020. Eslick finished sixth in his Semi, missing making the main by three spots. Five different brands made it into the Du Quoin Grand National fi- nal. There were seven riders each struggled equally at Castle Rock, but Brad [Baker] and Jared [Mees] go good there," Smith said. "If we had to lose one, that was the best one to lose, especially since we lost Hagerstown [to a rain cancel- ation]. Now that they added a short track at Vegas I'm going to be hammer down at these Twins races and riding my ass off on the short tracks. So at these Miles I've got to keep winning, not just because it's cool, but because of the points." Bryan Smith (left) remains undefeated on the Mile tracks so far this season. continued on next page