| May 20, 2024
Just seven days prior, a dominant performance on the part of Rick Ware Racing’s Briar Bauman forced a re-examination of the shape the ’24 season was taking. Rather than a repeat of last year’s two-rider showcase of champion and challenger featuring Jared Mees and Dallas Daniels, Bauman’s victory added additional evidence to Brandon Robinson’s twin wins that this year’s Progressive American Flat Track campaign might more closely resemble ’22’s multi-rider fight instead.
But that was seven days prior. The inaugural Silver Dollar Short Track would have not just fit in with last year’s Grand National Championship battle but served as an exemplar of that epic title tilt.
It was another unpredictable night of racing, this time at the Silver Dollar Short Track in Chico, California.
Mees and Daniels fought hard for top honors in Chico, throwing increasingly desperate haymakers to the finish. At least once, the Estenson Racing Yamaha ace tracked down day-long dominator Mees with just three minutes and two laps left to decide the victor.
The nine-time champion came into the main as a heavy favorite, topping every practice, qualifying, heat race and challenge he’d participated in all day.
He slashed under Daniels at the start, hoping to author yet another runaway act at the front aboard his factory-backed Indian. That plan was initially foiled not by Daniels but rather by part-timer Sammy Halbert on the Dodge Bros. Racing/Castrol Harley-Davidson XR750.
Jared Mees (1) and Dallas Daniels battled to the bitter end, with the veteran Mees winning.
Halbert proved his Daytona stunner was no fluke or single-track act at Silver Dollar Speedway, where he not only hounded Mees, but actually took control of the race and threatened to break free himself at one point.
While the sheer speed was there to secure the iconic machine’s 503rd victory, the consistency was not—at least not at the level required to hold off peak-form Mees or Daniels, who eventually both worked by Halbert to reunite for their late-race duel.
Halbert would fall into the clutches of Mission Roof Systems’ Brandon Robinson, running the final seven laps in fourth before executing a final lap strike to steal back the final step on the box at the stripe.
Harley fans were thrilled to see Sammy Halbert leading at one point. The part-time racer ended up on the box.
Halbert said, “I could feel the Harley faithful cheering me on. That gave me the motivation to dig deep to get that podium. Running up front early with Mees felt like old times, up on the high banks, chasing him down. It was sweet to get the lead, but I knew I passed him a little bit early and was going to learn from that and come back by. We didn’t have it to race for the win at the end, but I don’t race very often, so it’s hard to dial in the fine little improvements to run with those two up front—they’re something special for sure. You’ve got to be really on it to run with them, but it feels special to get this podium.”
The battle for the win saw Mees and Daniels repeatedly run up and under each other, tight-roping the high line as they jockeyed for position. The Yamaha prodigy seemed to have momentum on his side, but after a final-corner attempt fell short, it became clear that, once again, Mees had, well, something—be it experience, aggression or some more elusive advantage—working in his favor that made the difference at the checkered flag.
Daniels was left bitterly disappointed, feeling he let one get away and eager for an opportunity to make amends, one which won’t come until the season resumes in mid-June at the earliest.
For Mees, it was just another highlight win in a long career sparkling with them.
He said, “Chico was a great day. Fast qualified, won the heat, won the Dash, won the main. It was really dicey. I thought I had a good lead in the main but got into some lappers and lost it. From that point on, it was a duel with Dallas. We got pretty aggressive with one another, but it was one of those things where you could probably re-line that race up again and again, and we’d go back and forth on who the winner would be. But in this one, we got the job done.”
Bauman followed up last week’s triumph with a relatively lonely and quiet fifth. Behind, Fairway Ford’s Jarod Vanderkooi finished sixth as the final rider on the lead lap, while Memphis Shades/Vinson Construction’s Dan Bromley gave the developing Honda Transalp its best finish yet in seventh.
Jarod Vanderkooi (20) and Brandon Robinson mixed it up for a while, with Robinson taking fourth and Vanderkooi sixth.
Vanderkooi continued his attempt to rediscover the form he demonstrated a couple of seasons back when he was a podium regular. While still searching, consecutive finishes of 5-4-6 suggest he’s not too far off from realizing that goal. He said, “We kind of just chased all day long. The track was changing constantly. They keep prepping it and prepping it and prepping it. And by the end of the day, we thought we had something for that main event, but we could have went a different way with that setup—and my riding, personally. All-in-all, a sixth is good, but fighting for top fives and the podium is where we want to be.”
Jarod Vanderkooi finished sixth to hold onto the fifth spot in the championship points.
Fastrack KTM’s Bronson Bauman earned eighth, while a pair of rookies, Latus Motors Harley-Davidson’s Max Whale and GOMR’s Declan Bender, completed the top 10.
Disappointed or not, Daniels retains the points lead (124), now followed most closely by Mees (118). Robinson is still right there at 117, while Bauman is hanging on 25 points back with 99.
Last week’s Singles winner Chase Saathoff (88) and defending champ Kody Kopp fought it out for the win.
Singles
The Parts Unlimited AFT Singles main event was something of a remix that mashed together a pair of dramatic outcomes from earlier in the season. It was eerily similar to last week’s contest at Ventura, with JPG Motorsports’ Chase Saathoff clearing off in the opening stages in search of a second-career win before being reeled back in and overhauled, albeit this week by reigning champ Kody Kopp on the Rick Ware Racing KTM rather than Estenson Racing’s Tom Drane.
Kopp celebrates winning the Singles main.
While something of a nightmare for Saathoff, for Drane the race evoked even less rosy memories. Despite two wins, a second, and a third on the season, the Australian was hoping to claw back Kopp’s early-season championship lead due to an opening-night crash that took place in a clash with Saathoff on the final lap at Daytona.
Tom Drane had a frustrating night, but still managed a sixth place and is third in the points chase.
This time, Saathoff came together instead with T.J. Welty while putting the rookie a lap down. That resulted in Welty crashing out of a debut in an incident that collected Drane in its carnage.
And for a time, it looked as if a badly limping Drane might be unable to make the restart. However, he ultimately put his helmet back on, gritted it out, and diced his way up to sixth from the back of the grid.
“The day started out good,” Drane said, “and we won the fastest heat race and got pole for the main. We were going pretty good. I was running third and struggling just a little to keep pace, but I felt like I was starting to make some improvements. And then a rider got taken out in front of me, went down, and ended up right in front of me. I had nowhere to go. I got caught up in that and ended up a little bit wounded. I had to push my way from the back of the grid to get sixth.”
SuperTwins podium: Jared Mees (center), Dallas Daniels (left) and Sammy Halbert (right).
Up front, the race played out less dramatically, with Kopp taking a clear win, followed by Saathoff, and Turner Racing Honda’s Trent Lowe in third.
“As good as [the track] was, the free traction and the moisture started to go away as we were racing—same as last weekend in Ventura,” said last week’s winner Saathoff. “Hat’s off to Kody—that was a good race. I thought I had it in the bag the first half of the race, but then I caught my foot a couple of times and started making mistakes and slipping up.”
A pair of home-state heroes, Vinson Construction/P&M Motorcycles’ Tarren Santero and 1st Impressions Husqvarna’s James Ott, rounded out the top five ahead of the charging Drane.
Kopp’s win bolsters his championship lead, which now stands at an imposing 22 points over Saathoff (133-111) with Drane another three points back at 108.CN
SuperTwins
- Jared Mees (Ind) 37 Laps
- Dallas Daniels (Yam) 0.436
- Sammy Halbert (H-D) 4.908
- Brandon Robinson (Ind) 5.343
- Briar Bauman (KTM) 7.226
- Jarod Vanderkooi (Ind) 12.384
- Dan Bromley (Hon) 1 Lap
- Bronson Bauman (KTM) 3.823
- Max Whale (H-D) 6.835
- Declan Bender (Ind) 7.498
Singles
- Kody Kopp (KTM) 23 Laps
- Chase Saathoff (Hon) 1.648
- Trent Lowe (Hon) 3.471
- Tarren Santero (Hon) 4.065
- James Ott (Hus) 5.912
- Tom Drane (Yam) 6.193
- Evan Renshaw (Hon) 6.409
- Michael Inderbitzin (Hon) 6.828
- Travis Petton (KTM) 7.453
- Justin Anselmi (Yam) 9.084