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FLAT TRACK AMA PRO FLAT TRACK SERIES ROUND 10/AUGUST 29, 2015 CHARLOTTE MOTOR SPEEDWAY/CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA P96 led with Coolbeth and Mees running in his wake. In the closing laps Smith suddenly found the speed to gap Mees, who'd moved around Coolbeth late. On the white flag lap Smith was 1.164 clear of Mees. Suddenly fans rose up when they saw trouble with Mees. He pulled off the inside of the track in the turn one area pounding his fist in frustration. His sure runner-up finish was ruined by a broken motor. Smith came around to take the checkered flag with a 3.273-second margin of victory on Coolbeth. With Mees' late exit Halbert inherited the final podium spot in third on his Briggs Auto/Martin Trucking Har- ley, edging out Latus Motors/Cas- trol Triumph's Brandon Robinson, 5.256-seconds back from Smith. Rookie Jaron Vanderkooi rounded out the top five on his Don's Kawa- saki, in his best GNC1 result to date. Stevie Bonsey, Henry Wiles (who took a provisional start just to make the Main), Harley-Davidson factory replacement rider Jake Johnson, Doug Lawrence and Briar Bauman rounded out the top 10. CN GNC1 Final 1. Bryan Smith (Kaw) 2. Kenny Coolbeth, Jr. (H-D) 3. Sammy Halbert (H-D) 4. Brandon Robinson (Tri) 5. Jarod Vanderkooi (Kaw) 6. Stevie Bonsey (H-D) 7. Henry Wiles (H-D) 8. Jake Johnson (Kaw) 9. Doug Lawrence H-D) 10. Briar Bauman (Kaw) Briefly... The event was named in honor of Harley-Davidson icon Don Tilley, who was perhaps best known for helping to build and tune Lucifer's Hammer, an AMA Battle of the Twins road racing championship winning machine. Tilley passed away in an ac- cident last year. Promotor SMI presented the Tilley family with a special glass etched com- memorative plaque to mark the occasion of the inaugural Til- ley Memorial. Three of Tilley's former riders, Jay Springsteen, Tripp Nobles and Gene Church were also honored as part of the Tilley celebration and there was a special ride to the track with some former NASCAR drivers. DMG and NASCAR principal Jim France was on hand for the race as was NASCAR's vice chairman Mike Helton. Shawn Baer was on hand at Charlotte. His dramatic Indy Mile crash, where his bike exploded into two pieces, was featured heavily in promotion of Charlotte race. Baer said he is sore, but getting better quickly and is re- building a new KTM and hopes to be racing again as soon as this coming weekend in Spring- field. The red flag stopped the race when Jeffrey Carver crashed his Don's Kawasaki on lap 11 of the Grand National going into turn four. "There were a couple of rough spots getting into the center of the corner," Carver explained. I was kind of having front-end problems throughout the night. I was on the throttle and the front kind of picked over one of the holes and with me on the gas it just spun it around and tossed me down." Carver only suffered a bruised leg, but his bike was too damaged to con- tinue. Comparing this year's track to the past Charlotte races, Kenny Coolbeth (who finished second in the last national held here in 2002) said the track was one- lined early in the day, but by the main the track was very similar to the way it was in 2002. "Except I don't think we ran that high in the main back then," Coolbeth recalls. "This track is awesome. It's got a great atmosphere and it's great to get the eyes of peo- ple on you from other forms of motorsports." Jake Johnson had a decent ride on the factory Harley-David- son as a replacement rider for the injured Brad Baker. Johnson finished eighth. He said once the track was watered before the main he had a tougher time. "I was spinning up coming out of the corners," Johnson said. "Some of that could be some rust blowing off [from not racing much of the season]. Me and Brad [Baker] are different riders and we did change quite a bit throughout the day. I was disap- pointed in myself, I wanted to do a little bit better, but the guys worked hard and we learned a lot. We'll take that to Springfield and Delaware. Calistoga is still up in the air depending on how Brad's doing."

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