AMA Flat Track: Same As It Ever Was; Halbert, Mees & Johnson Qualify Top 3 at Daytona Short Track Round 1

With qualifying complete at round 1 of the 2012 AMA Pro Flat Track Harley-Davidson Insurance Grand National Championship presented by Motorcycle-Superstore.com season at the Daytona Short Track, the new season is starting to look like the 2011 season as Sammy Halbert, Jared Mees and 2-Time defending AMA Grand National Champion Jake Johnson topped the charts this afternoon for what looks to be another stellar year for the top men of the sport.

Halbert, on his #7 Woody Kyle Racing/Fredericktown Yamaha-sponsored YZ450F led all comers again today in practice and when it counted, amongt the 53 riders that took a qualifying time, with a time of 17.150 seconds on the limestone/sea shell track outside turns 1 and 2 at the World Center of Speed in Daytona Beach.

Mees took his #9 Montgomeryville Cycle/Rogers Lake Racing-sponsored Honda CRF450R to the 2nd spot on the time sheets, just .048 seconds back of Slammin' Sammy, with 2-Time Jersey Jake on the #1 Zanotti Racing/Schaeffer's H-D-backed Honda just a tick back at 17.267 seconds.  All three averaged just over 52 MPH in timed qualifying.

Brandon Robinson and Donald Mullen II rounded out the top 5 on Honda machinery, which is again the scooter of choice in the Singles Series events this season.  Other notables included 2-Time Singles Series Champ Henry Wiles who qualified 8th, Kenny Coolbeth, Jr. in the 14th spot and Johnny Lewis who qualified 15th.  '11 Rookie of the Year Brad Baker put his Kenny Tolbert/Werner Springsteen Kawasaki in the 19th spot with a time of 17.503 seconds in his first ride in a Grand National race with his new team after winning one of the Pro Expert Singles mains the other day at Volusia.

AMA Pro Flat Track was earlier experiencing the new-season blues with live timing and scoring and the PDF results section has been slow to come back around, though some results are being posted, albeit a little slow today.

Opening ceremonies are scheduled for 7:30 PM EDT and the first Pro Singles heat race is scheduled to roll off at 8:00 PM EDT.

Miriam Deitcher, the hardest working lady in flat track, is on the scene and is providing updates, pics and videos from today's and tomorrow's action at Daytona, and you can keep up with her Flat Track Live via the link below.

In the shot above, Jake Johnson #1 leads Sammy Halbert #7 and Jared Mees #9 out of the gate for qualifying for round 15 of the 2011 AMA Pro Flat Track Harley-Davidson Insurance Grand National Championship presented by Motorcycle-Superstore.com season at the Springfield Short Track on September 3.
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Follow the action from rounds 1 & 2 of the 2012 AMA Pro Flat Track Harley-Davidson Insurance Grand National Championship presented by Motorcycle-Superstore.com season at the Daytona Short Track, with Miriam Deitcher and her GREAT Facebook Flat Track Live here:

https://www.facebook.com/FlatTrackLive

AMA Pro Flat Track Live Timing and Scoring link here:

http://live.amaproracing.com/ft/

AMA Pro Flat Track complete results for round 1 at Daytona (PDF versions) here:

http://results.amaproracing.com/live/results/pdfresults/ft/2012/F1205/default.aspx

AMA Pro Flat Track complete event info here for round 1 at Daytona (standard versions):

http://amaproracing.com/ft/events/results.cfm?year=2012&eid=2012021205

AMA Pro Flat Track event info list here:

http://amaproracing.com/ft/events/

Daytona Beach weather info courtesy of The Weather Underground here:

http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=zmw:32114.1.99999
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