AMA Flat Track: Jake Johnson Takes the Win at the Springfield TT Over Jared Mees & JR Schnabel

Jake Johnson on his #1 Zanotti Racing/Schaeffer's H-D/MotionPro/Arai-sponsored Honda CRF450R leads eventual 3rd place finisher JR Schnabel, Jr. on his #33 Monster Energy/Werner-Springsteen Racing/Cedar Creek Motorsports/Wossner Pistons-sponsored Kawasaki KX450F and eventual 2nd place finisher Jared Mees on his #9 Montgomeryville Cycle Center/Lucas Oil/Rogers Lake Racing/Saddlemen-backed Honda CRF450R in route to his second win of the season at the Springfield TT, round 7 of the 2011 AMA Pro Flat Track Harley-Davidson Insurance Grand National Championship Series on Memorial Day, Monday May 30.  Johnson overcame a red flag restart early in the program to get the jump on the field and win over Mees by 1.33 seconds and another 2.81 seconds back to JR.  Fourth place finisher Steve Bonsey on his #80 MDR Racing/Alpinestars/Arai/Rod Lake-sponsored Honda CRF450R can be seen just coming into the shot on the far right.

Johnson, who had just finished 3rd on the mile on Sunday afternoon to winner Mees and runner-up Sammy Halbert, again showed why he is the defending AMA Grand National Champion in being able to capitalize on the red flag restart and power his way to the win on the Singles Series bikes, leading the majority of laps after having won his heat race earlier in the day and coming home 4th in the Dash for Cash.  The only real missive he had all day was on the podium when during the excitement his trophy got knocked over and a piece broke off of it in the celebration.

Sammy Halbert brought it home 5th on his #7 Woody Kyle Racing/Fredericktown Yamaha/AGV/Kings Kustoms-backed YZ450F after coming off the fourth row due to being involved in the melee that caused the red flag after several laps that saw the ambulance have to give a ride to fallen rider Rob Pearson out of Morton, Illinois on his #27 Matt Reecy Racing/RPM/WKR/Moose Hot Cams-sponsored Yamaha YZ450F.  As of this writing there was no update available on his condition.  3-Time AMA Grand National Twins Champion Kenny Coolbeth, Jr. brought his #2 Chaplin Kawasaki/Spectro Oils/Wiseco/Fox-sponsored KX450F home in the 6th position, while personable New York State resident Matt Weidman had his best finish on the year and a very hard-fought ride home into 7th place on his #20 SNIP/Shoei/Silkolene/K&N-sponsored Honda CRF450R.

Keep an eye out throughout the coming week as Stu's Shots offers up a Springfield Extravaganza of shots and stories from the doubleheader weekend from the Illinois State Fairgrounds!
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You can read the story of the event today over at Cycle News.com thanks to Larry Lawrence:

http://www.cyclenews.com/articles/flat-track/2011/05/30/johnson-tops-springfield-tt/

AMA Pro Flat Track offers up the overall event results so you can see who did what.  For some reason the AMA Flat Track crew had problems with the total points scoring after the race, so the points reflected as of this writing are incorrect, but it is believed Sammy Halbert emerged from the weekend with an eight point lead over runner up Johnson.  We'll have that update this week and compare notes as to who is where in the series totals seven rounds into the scheduled 22 race season:

http://results.amaproracing.com/live/results/pdfresults/ft/2011/F1125/default.aspx

Here are the standard results for the AMA Pro Flat Track Harley-Davidson Insurance Grand National Championship Series event on the Springfield TT on Memorial Day Monday:

http://www.amaproracing.com/ft/events/results.cfm?year=2011&eid=2011021125
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