HINES
VOL. 53 ISSUE 21 JUNE 1, 2016 P69
and I did the same thing. I swung wide and
I kind of had thought of doing that, and he
[looked like he] was going to go wide and ran
low at the last minute. I was kind of commit-
ted to going underneath him at that point. It
got really tight for sure; I had to really shuffle
the thing over to the inside. Luckily the Kawa-
saki pulled out and passed that Harley."
For a split second it looked like Brad Baker
might benefit from the leaders' battle. "I wish
I would have been one spot ahead on the last
lap," Baker said. "I would have rather been in
Jared's position, to try to get by Bryan, or to
get by Bryan going into turn three. Jared got
himself in that position and I was right
there latched onto the back of him.
Jared shut down really hard going into
turn three. I think that was maybe a lit-
tle bit of his idea to maybe shut down
and make Bryan have to go around or
get off the groove a little bit. Maybe
After a disastrous week in California, Jared
Mees had a solid day. "I didn't get to see the
halfway flags, so much stuff was happening
the whole time," said Mees. "The race went
so fast. All of a sudden the five-to-go came
out and I was fourth. I thought, 'Awe, man,
I'm not in the position I need to be in.' There
were a couple times that I almost got him
[Smith] at the start finish line. You just don't
know if he's giving it his all or what. I knew my
best bet was to try to lead it off of four. I went
up the inside and with how far he moved over,
maybe I should have waited, I don't know..."
"I wanted to size everybody up to know
where I wanted to be on the last lap.
Kenny kept sneaking around and
when I was fourth I didn't like that,"
added Smith. "Luckily we got back
up there for the white flag when it
counted and I led it there at the last
lap. Last Fall, coming off four, Jared
Baker (6) fends
off fourth-place
finisher Brandon
Robinson (44)
and fifth place
Kenny Coolbeth
Jr. (2).
