| August 14, 2023
The 2023 Grand National Championship fight arrived at Castle Rock Race Park, with the momentum clearly shifted in favor of reigning champion Jared Mees.
By Chris Martin | Photography by Tim Lester
Trailing by two points following Daniels’ upset victory at the Bridgeport Half-Mile, the Indian ace reconfigured the standings into a five-point advantage in his favor at the previous two rounds. Critically, those races—the Peoria TT and the Black Hills HM—were a pair of events, at least when the Black Hills HM was still the Buffalo Chip TT, that were once viewed as cornerstones to any projected Daniels’ title run.
That put Estenson Racing’s emerging superstar in a position where he needed to come up huge at Castle Rock to go into the upcoming double finale at the Springfield Mile, where Mees has ruled with an iron fist as of late, with more than a puncher’s chance.
Ideally, that meant somehow reclaiming the points lead in Washington. The presence of Daniels’ teammate, JD Beach, who ranks as one of the greatest TT riders the sport has ever seen, created the potential for two possible paths that were easily imagined before the lights went green.
The first of those was for Daniels to straight up beat Beach, as difficult as that may be, and put his teammate between himself and Mees, guaranteeing a seven-point swing at minimum.
The other was for Beach to simply move aside for Daniels, F1-style, and artificially create that same effect.
Both of those paths seemingly imploded about five seconds into the main event, when Beach leaped out into first and started up his disappearing act, while Daniels found himself caught up behind not just Mees but another TT extraordinaire in Rick Ware Racing’s Briar Bauman.
Daniels forced his way past Bauman before their relative positions could solidify and then went about finding a way around Mees on a track that offered only fleeting passing opportunities.
Once Daniels managed to rush up the inside of Mees less than two minutes into the race, the results at the front seemed pretty much set in stone, especially coming off a processional Parts Unlimited AFT Singles main event that essentially played out as a glorified game of follow the leader.
Of course, that’s when everything went haywire.
First, Bauman crashed after getting sucked into a multi-rider fight for fourth. But before Daniels could come back around to observe the fallen KTM ace, he first witnessed the shocking sight of Beach’s spill in front of him.
Daniels inherited the lead and Mees second, while Beach frantically picked his Yamaha MT-07 DT up off the dirt and got back into the mix as quickly as humanly possible. Despite later admitting to riding tight under the duress of some serious nerves, the new leader promptly built up a big advantage of his own.
Mees, meanwhile, focused on coming home second to hold on to the points lead. That ultimately proved an uphill climb as the remounted Beach came storming for him from several seconds back.
But first, Beach was forced to find a way around Royal Enfield’s Johnny Lewis, and he did so in an unconventional around-the-outside fashion. He then reeled in the defending Grand National Champion, finally closing to within striking distance with less than a minute remaining on the clock.
Despite seeing his chance to earn a ninth win in the series’ most recent 10 TTs blown up, Beach still had hopes of playing the hero for both his team and his teammate if only he could complete the pass.
Rather, it was Mees’ heroism that won the day, as he successfully defended the position to the flag.
As a result, Mees will go into the decisive Springfield Mile doubleheader with a one-point lead (342-341) instead of a two-point disadvantage (341-339). In practice, that means Daniels must now plan on winning twice at a venue where Mees has won five of the last six main events instead of “merely” equaling his results.
On the bright side, that’s far better for him than if Mees had won and Daniels finished second at Castle Rock, in which case even two victories at Springfield wouldn’t have been enough to guarantee Daniels the crown.
“Lining up for that main, I was feeling pretty confident,” Daniels said. “I felt that even if I didn’t get a good start, I could pin a tail on JD. Unfortunately, I did get a bad start, and Jared got by me and Briar did too, but I was able to get by him quick. I got by Jared, and as soon as I did, JD fell down. ‘Oh, my God.’ That kind of freaked me out, and I had to loosen up. Two of the best TT guys [Beach and Bauman] had just crashed, and I didn’t want to make the same mistake, especially with Jared behind me.
“I was looking back a lot and was riding tight. I wasn’t very happy with how I rode, but I was so nervous. I hate to get a win like that, and I hate to break JD’s TT streak like that, but it’s racing. You’ve got to get to the finish line first.
“A big thanks to the whole team. This stretch of races was so fun. I’m happy to cap it off with a win, and I’m feeling good going into Springfield.”
While the stage was set for the finale once the top three riders crossed the stripe, the Castle Rock TT had yet to play out completely behind them.
There, TT legend Henry Wiles hustled the Briggsauto.com/Martin Trucking Indian to fourth, followed by Rackley Racing’s Davis Fisher, who grew up racing at Castle Rock.
As did the sixth-place finisher, Martin Trucking/Castrol’s Sammy Halbert, who proved that, even in semi-retirement, he’s still got some of the mojo that previously saw him win three Grand National Championships at the venue.
Mission Roof Systems’ Brandon Robinson, Lewis, and Fisher’s Rackley Racing teammate, Ben Lowe, finished seventh through ninth, respectively, while home track hero Scooter Vernon rounded out the top 10 on the Hovey Racing/Stace Richmand-backed KTM.
AFT SINGLES
Everything was set up in dream fashion for defending Parts Unlimited AFT Singles champion Kody Kopp. The Castle Rock TT represented a chance to lock up the championship, tie the Singles season wins record, and earn his first career TT win, all in front of a partisan crowd at his home track.
Instead, it played out more akin to a nightmare. Kopp was never in serious contention throughout the day, as he qualified 10th fastest, failed to advance through his heat, didn’t even win the LCQ, and then ran outside the top 10 for over half the main event before finally making his way up to an eventual 10th-place result.
While clearly not the sort of evening he had in mind, the result is far from a disaster, thanks to the championship groundwork he’d previously laid. This is still very much Kopp’s championship to lose; he now needs only accumulate 15 more points in Springfield (the equivalent of a single fifth or the pairing of a 12th and 13th) to hold onto his number-one plate.
But with Kopp struggling by his sky-high standards, the spotlight was free to shine elsewhere. And what it illuminated was a race-long, wheel-to-wheel freight train at the front.
Estenson Racing’s Trevor Brunner won the sprint to the first turn—and, as a result, ultimately, the race. He was hounded throughout by a hungry Dalton Gauthier on the D&D Certified KTM, who was looking to snap his 12-race podium drought with a win at a track he conquered a year ago.
But try as he might, Gauthier could not find a way past. That difficult task was made that much harder by the looming presence of Walrath Racing’s Tanner Dean, Red Bull KTM’s Max Whale, Brunner’s teammate, Tom Drane, and Turner Racing Honda’s Chase Saathoff, any of whom—perhaps all of whom—would pounce on Gauthier it he put a wheel wrong in an errant attempt to take the lead.
In fact, that actually happened. Brunner and Gauthier both nearly lost the front with less than 30 seconds on the clock. Dean took advantage to rip past Gauthier, but the 2019 champ found it easier to reclaim second than he had to take over first.
A last-gasp attempt fell short by 0.202 of a second at the flag, seeing Brunner claim his second win of the season.
Gauthier and Dean rounded out the podium while Whale, Drane, and Saathoff followed in line in that order
While Kopp is out of reach short of a genuine disaster with 308 points, Brunner is back in second and with a nine-point cushion over teammate Drane for runner-up honors (273-264) with just the double finale to go. CN
SUPERTWINS
- Dallas Daniels (Yam) 28 Laps
- Jared Mees (Ind) 2.685
- JD Beach (Yam) 3.184
- Henry Wiles (Ind) 11.113
- Davis Fisher (Ind) 16.091
- Sammy Halbert (Yam) 17.670
- Brandon Robinson (Ind) 17.977
- Johnny Lewis (RE) 23.267
- Ben Lowe (Ind) 23.440
- Scooter Vernon (Yam) 23.945
SINGLES
- Trevor Brunner (Yam) 23 Laps
- Dalton Gauthier (KTM) 0.202
- Tanner Dean (Hon) 0.350
- Max Whale (KTM) 0.502
- Tom Drane (Yam) 0.704
- Chase Saathoff (Hon) 1.348
- James Ott (Hus) 5.835
- Chad Cose (Hus) 6.198
- Aidan RoosEvans (Hon) 6.368
- Kody Kopp (KTM) 6.599