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FLAT TRACK AMA PRO FLAT TRACK SERIES ROUND 10/AUGUST 29, 2015 CHARLOTTE MOTOR SPEEDWAY/CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA P94 My Own Race: 42 BRYAN SMITH 1ST Bryan Smith proved once and for all that the Crosley/ Howerton Kawasaki is as much of a threat on grooved half-miles as it is on the bigger mile tracks after winning everything there was to win at Charlotte, including the main event. "I wish we had a pit board," Smith said of the end of the race. "I kept hearing something going into turn one. The pipes are on the right side on the Kawasaki and it was probably an echo off the wall. I thought someone was breathing down my neck and they were going to slide job me on the last lap. So I rode the last two laps like they were for the championship. I wasn't letting up at all at the end and I got a little squirrelly with a couple laps to go. We could go damn near flat out here. There were a couple of times I was like, 'Roll it on a little bit… oh wait—I've already got my foot up and it's wide open before I'm off the cor- ners. It's not very often on a Half-Mile you can get a 750 wide open before you get off the corner. Normally it takes until the start-finish line. It was a great track the way it came around in the final." 1 JARED MEES 17TH Jared Mees was starting to look unbeatable in the cham- pionship chase after Peoria, but a broken motor on the last lap while running second will make him work a little harder to secure that number one plate again this season. "I came off the last corner there for the white flag and she let go and it stopped," Mees said of his Las Vegas Harley- Davidson/Rogers Racing XR750. "It's just unfortunate. You know for [Bryan] Smith to get back at me I was go- ing to have to break and he was going to have to win one and sure enough that's what happened. It's one of those things. Anything can happen in racing and tonight was a perfect example of it. It's really unfortunate, because I re- ally think we have the best package going this year. We've been fast week-in and week-out. It's just going to make me work harder." 69 SAMMY HALBERT 3RD Sammy Halbert is riding with the number 69 on his ma- chines the rest of the season in honor of his recently passed brother and fellow Grand National racer Jethro Halbert. Sammy scored his third podium of the season, choosing to ride his Briggs Auto/Martin Trucking/Lucas Oil Harley-Davidson XR750 at this round instead of the team's Kawasaki. "It feels good to get on the podium, es- pecially coming from the third row," Halbert said. "I got a good start and was up in the mix. And then at the restart I picked up another spot. I pushed a little too hard trying to stay with the frontrunners and kind of made a few mistakes and dropped back. Then I calmed down and settled into my own race. It was a tough break for Jared [Mees] there at the end, but I'll take it. I need to make a habit of getting on the podium. At the end I had an intense battle with Brandon Robinson. He was dive bombing me into turn three and blocking me. Eventually I changed my line and blocked him and was able to come home third." 2 KENNY COOLBETH, JR. 2ND Kenny Coolbeth, Jr. bounced back in a big way with a strong run on his Zanotti Racing Harley-Davidson in Char- lotte after missing the main at Peoria. His runner-up finish boosted him to at least an outside chance of staying in the championship picture in the final four rounds. "The track caught me off guard," Coolbeth said of the wider lines in the final. "I didn't think we were going to be riding that high on the race track. Once Bryan [Smith] got around me I thought I had to try something. I tried to follow him, but I was kind of timid. There were some grater ruts out there and I caught them a couple of times with my front end. It kind of made me think a little and he pulled away there. I'm happy to be back on the podium. Everybody is working hard to do it." 44 BRANDON ROBINSON 4TH Brandon Robinson scored his fourth top-five finish and earned his second best finish of the season aboard his La- tus Motors/Castrol Triumph Bonneville. "It's been a little bit of a struggle on the half-miles for sure on the Triumph," Robinson said. "But we've been doing some testing lately and seems to be paying off. I botched the restart a little bit and had to fight to get back up to that fourth-fifth spot again. When I saw Jared [Mees] break I knew that last- lap battle between me and Sammy [Halbert] was for third. Sammy started catching onto my line in three and four. I was going in real low and just kind of rifting all the way up to the tacky part. He decided to go a little lower and I couldn't quite make that pass on him for third." 17F JAROD VANDERKOOI 5TH Rookie of the Year candidate Jarod Vanderkooi earned his best Grand National finish so far with a fifth on his Don's Kawasaki. "We started off in practice qualifying seventh, so we were feeling really good going into the night pro- gram," said Vanderkooi, whose previous best result this year was seventh at the Du Quoin Mile. "I got the holeshot in the heat and it felt really good to lead it for about six or seven laps in front of [Bryan] Smith and [Brandon] Robin- son. I got a decent start from the second row in the main and started working the guys in front of me. I tried to get to the guys in front of me, but couldn't quite get it done, but I'm pumped with a top five."

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