When the American Flat Track 2017 season kicked off in March, the AFT Twins class was touted as a return of the Harley-Davidson Motor Company vs. Indian Motorcycle wars, but Sammy Halbert and his Estenson Logistics-backed Yamaha is emerging as Indian’s main challenger.
Last week in Springfield, Illinois, Halbert led a couple of laps, late in the race. This week at The Red Mile in Lexington, Kentucky, Halbert led 19 of the 25 laps in the AFT Twins main event.
Indian Motorcycle/Rogers Racing’s Jared Mees had looked to be the rider to beat all day after setting fast qualifying time, winning the fastest heat of the day and winning his semi by over 13 seconds and over five 5 faster than Halbert’s semi time.
The odd-shaped mile oval proved to be very challenging with somewhat of an egg shape. Turns one and two were long and sweeping while three and four were tight and almost pointed. The crowded grandstands, said to be sold out, sat well down the straight almost into turn one. Attendance was reported at 6700 for the first motorcycle race at this facility since 2001.
Mees’ answer was to downshift for turns three and four, and it worked to his advantage for most of the day. However the strategy may have revealed a problem for the Indian Scout TR750.
“I lost the shifter again, two laps in. I was shifting in three and four, but not one and two,” Mees said. “I couldn’t rail off four like I wanted to. Man it was unfortunate because I was really looking to put a whooping on them. I don’t know if I could have done it, but I felt a lot better when I could shift that thing in three and four. When I couldn’t do it, I just had to go to old school racing. I had to pull that tall gear and roll through that corner.”
Mees had jumped into the lead but couldn’t shake the pesky Halbert, and then when he encountered his shifting problem Halbert took the lead.
“I led a lot of that one,” Halbert said. “The Estenson Racing Yamaha FZ-07 was running strong. Jared was strong today, too, and we knew that going in. I was able to catch on to his draft and luckily pull away from everyone else. It was a dogfight between us. Honestly, it felt like a big short track race with the way the corners were. You just had to skid it in there and then get through the pot holes and get back to racing off the corners. It felt like another typical Wednesday night short track battle with Jared, like we’ve done so much.”
The lead pair were over 7 seconds ahead of the rest of the field. Indian Motorcycle/Allstate Insurance teammates, Bryan Smith and Brad Baker were having a private war for the last podium spot until Harley-Davidson Motor Company’s Brandon Robinson hustled his XG750R into the mix and he brought Zanotti Racing/Rod Lake Racing’s Briar Bauman and his Kawasaki along, too. The battle for the win came down to the last lap.
“Obviously there was a lot of strategy with the draft,” Halbert said. “His (Mees’) strategy seemed to be to follow, and I wasn’t sure if that was good or not. I figured I would just need to block a little bit going into turn three, which I did. It worked, I led into turn three like last weekend, which is what I think we both wanted to do. Unfortunately he just got a good run off of four and just nipped me at the line.”
Mees said he wanted to lead it off four.
“Sammy would get off of four good one lap, and then spin it up bad off four one lap and kill my momentum, because I didn’t have that drive,” Mees said. “He was kind of going to the inside, and I just went around on the outside. It feels amazing to finally get a mile win this year on the Indian and stop Bryan’s streak.”
Baker was able to gain the advantage of his teammate this week and just held him off at the finish line by a hundredth of a second. Robinson and Bauman were a very close fifth and sixth, making it four manufacturers in the top six finishers.
Jeffrey Carver (Ben Evans Racing/Carver’s BBQ Kawasaki), Chad Cose (Richie Reynolds Racing/Otten Racing Kawasaki), Johnny Lewis (Lloyd Brothers Motorsports Ducati) and Kenny Coolbeth (Harley-Davidson Motor Company Harley-Davidson XG750R) filled out the top 10.
In the AFT Singles main Kevin Stollings roared off and left everyone on his Ben Evans Racing/Dave’s Cycles Honda. Stollings took the lead on lap two and put over a six second lead on the field.
The battle over second was intense however. The 15-lap race came to an end with Stollings in another zip code and Tristan Avery (Ron Ayers Racing Honda), Shayna Texter (Richie Morris Racing/McElroy Packaging), Kolby Carlile (Parkinson Brothers Racing Honda) and Brandon Price (Don’s Kawasaki/DPC Racing Kawasaki) roaring across the line under the proverbial blanket.
Unfortunately, during the race Stollings’ header pipe bolts had worked loose and he was suffering from an exhaust leak. In a post-race sound check it was deemed the Stollings Honda was above the limit and his win was nullified. The win went to Avery, his first of the year. With Texter and Carlile moving up to second and third.
Your Privacy Choices