Mees takes AFT second round win at Atlanta on Scout FTR750
One
week after giving Indian Motorcycle its historic first victory in
American Flat Track competition at Daytona International Speedway, Jared
Mees made it two in a row on Saturday 25 March, winning at the Atlanta
Short Track, presented by Indian Motorcycle.
The
three-time Grand National Champion was part of a podium sweep for the
Indian “Wrecking Crew” in front of a near-capacity crowd at Dixie
Speedway in Woodstock, Ga.
It was another fierce battle for top
honors in the AFT Twins presented by Vance & Hines class, with Mees
on the No. 9 Indian Motorcycle Rogers Racing Scout FTR750 locked in a
back-and-forth battle with Sammy Halbert on the No. 69 Estenson Racing
Harley-Davidson XR750. The pair made contact, resulting in Halbert
ending up in the dirt on the front straight and bringing out a late-race
red flag.
When
the race restarted, Mees pulled away in the ensuing five-lap shootout
to win by 1.185 seconds over Indian Motorcycle Racing, backed by
Allstate teammates Brad Baker on the No. 6 Indian Scout FTR750 and Bryan
Smith on the No.1 Indian Scout FTR750.
“Sammy led pretty much all
the race before I started to come into play towards the end,” said Mees,
who scored his 18th career victory. “We just started slide-jobbing each
other. He’d get underneath me, then I’d get back underneath him. He was
trying to protect the lead coming down, and I was coming up where the
start/finish line has an arc. We just got together and he ended up with
the crappy end of the stick. That’s racing when you’re going with five
laps remaining for a Grand National Championship win. It’s hard.”
Mees
also recorded a personal milestone, scoring his first AFT Short Track
victory to complete the elusive dirt track Grand Slam. Opening the year
by winning the Harley-Davidson DAYTONA TT presented by Polaitis &
Matovina – his first TT triumph – Mees is now halfway to earning a dirt
track Grand Slam in consecutive races, something which has never been
done in the 64-year history of the sport.
The next events on the AFT
schedule are the Harley-Davidson Charlotte Half-Mile on Saturday, April
1, followed by the Law Tigers Arizona Mile presented by Indian
Motorcycle in Phoenix on May 13.