Harley-Davidson Motor Company / Screamin’ Eagle’s Kenny Coolbeth earned his first Grand National Championship by winning the Charity Newsies Half-Mile National on the Scioto Downs half-mile, a race that defending Grand National Champion Chris Carr failed to finish.
“This is just the greatest thing ever, first getting the factory ride, now the Grand National Championship. I’ve wanted this, my whole life,” Coolbeth said. The victory gave the 29-year-old from Connecticut both the AMA Grand National Twins Championship and the AMA Ford Quality Checked Flat Track Championship combined points championship.
Coolbeth and Carr were tied for the GNC lead coming into the final round, which was delayed three weeks by rain.
At the start Coolbeth got away in second and took the lead at the end of the first lap, but lost it for laps two and three.
By then Carr’s race was over. The defending champion finished the first lap in 14th, the victim of an XR-750 that had gone on one cylinder. He completed four laps at the back of the field.
Coolbeth took the lead from Lombardi H-D’s Dominic Beaulac on lap four and held it to the end.
Beaulac was passed by Bryan Smith and Jared Mees on the on the eighth lap, with the pair running up on Coolbeth.
Smith battled Mees nearly to the end, only to have clutch problems in the final two laps that caused him to coast to an 11th place finish. Smith’s clutch problems handed Mees second with Harley-Davidson’s Rich King moving up to third.
Final:
1. Ken Coolbeth (H-D)
2. Jared Mees (H-D)
3. Rich King (H-D)
4. Dominic Beaulac (H-D)
5. Nick Cummings (H-D)
6. Joe Kopp (H-D)
7. Shaun Russell (H-D)
8. Johnny Murphree (H-D)
9. George Roeder (H-D)
10. Jake Johnson (Suz)
11. Bryan Smith (H-D)
12. Tim Eades (H-D)
13. Willie McCoy (H-D)
14. Jess Roeder (H-D)
15. Logan Myers (H-D)
16. Chris Evans (H-D)
17. Henry Wiles (Apr)
18. Chris Carr (H-D)
