FLAT TRACK
AMERICAN FLAT TRACK CHAMPIONSHIP
ROUND 9 / JUNE 24, 2017
ALLEN COUNTY FAIRGROUNDS / LIMA, OHIO
P72
good start and got through that."
With Bauman pulling clear
the race for second became
intense. Carver and Baker were
using the entire racetrack as
their playground, passing each
other at both ends of the track.
But every lap it was Baker in
big gap," said Bauman. "I saw
that Sammy broke. I thought if
anybody was going to get up
there and mix it up, it was going
to be Brad and Sammy. Whenev-
er you have a red you just think,
'oh no, I wish I could just keep
that thing rolling.' Luckily I got a
many as the lines invariably
crossed at some point. There
were a lot of near misses and a
few hits as the night wore on.
"It seemed like everywhere I
wanted to go, there was some-
body there," said Smith. "I'd go
high and I wanted to turn and I'd
have to wait. I got to racing with
Davis [Fisher] and he t-boned
the hell out of me one lap. He
came in low and I turned and we
smashed each other in the mid-
dle of three and four. I thought
I was heading out towards 23. I
had to put the brakes on to keep
from going to the fence."
Bauman had stretched his
lead to almost three seconds
by lap 11 when the red lights
flashed. Dustin Crow had fallen
in turn two and was trapped
under his XR750.
Crow was able to rejoin the
race; Sammy Halbert, who was
in the thick of the battle over
second was forced to the pits
with a mechanical problem on
his Yamaha FZ-07, ending a
streak of six consecutive finishes
within the top four.
"We saw some smoke when
we stopped and just couldn't
make the restart," said Halbert.
The restart gave the field
renewed hopes, but the young
Californian quickly dashed
those. Within three laps, Bau-
man had regained his margin
and appeared to be on cruise
control, however, a very fast,
high-line cruise control.
"It's hard not to be nervous
about the restart; I knew I had a
Baker leads the way in a heat.
