Henry Wiles Hammers Em at AMA Flat Track Gas City Short Track

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The top three finishers at the Gas City round of the AMA Pro K&N Filters Grand National Championship presented by Motorcyclesuperstore.com are shown on the podium after the main event last night. While #21 Jared Mees gets interviewed for his second place finish, #3 Smokin' Joe Kopp can be seen breaking open a bottle of water after his third place finish. Main event winner #1 Hammerin' Hank Wiles is all smiles after dominating the evenings program.
This was the first event with the new K&N sponsorship for AMA Flat Track and the new logo for the series and Mike Kidd and the AMA Flat Track team did a great job ushering in the new title sponsor with a clean and tight program for the evening.
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Hammerin Hank Wiles and his #1 Don's/Monster Energy Kawasaki team relax and talk stategy after practice and qualifying at the Gas City/I-69 Speedway short track event. Wiles, who now has 10 main event wins on the 450 singles bikes, led the way after both starts last night to win the main event program over Jared Mees and Smokin' Joe Kopp. Obviously the stategy talk worked, as Wiles won his heat and took the dash win to make it a trifecta for the evening. Chad Cose on the #49 Digger Helm/Lightshoe Honda led qualifying by .050 seconds over Wiles.
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The #21 Rogers Lake/Rockysonline.com Honda of Jared Mees sits in the pits after practice and qualifying at the Gas City/I-69 Speedway round of the AMA Flat Track series on Saturday June 19th. Mees can be seen overlooking the team's operation, and girl friend Nicole Cheza (National #15) can be seen in the left corner checking things out. Mees capitalized on the red flag near the mid-point of the main to grab second place over Joe Kopp. Jared had just earlier in the afternoon qualified 9th for the evening's program.
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The Halbert Brothers talk in their pit area during the break in track action at Gas City. Jethro on the #69 Woody Kyle/Fredericktown Yamaha took fifth in the main while brother Slammin' Sammy on the #7 like-sponsored Yamaha carded a 6th place result for the day.
The brothers finished 1-2 in the American All Stars National Flat Track Half Mile event at Decatur, IL. nine days earlier and look to be strong on the pea gravel at Lima this coming Saturday.
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Second heat action gets underway with front row starters Luke Gough on the #62, Slammin' Sammy Halbert on the #7, #26 Brandan Bergen, #56 Michael Radley, #10 Johnny Lewis and eventual heat, dash and main event winner Henry Hammerin' Hank Wiles on his #1 Kawasaki getting a little out of shape just coming off the line. Henry was so dominant all night that in his heat he dropped towards the rear of the field after suffering a bobble in one of the turns, and then made a mad dash on the outside to sweep around the field to take the win. Rob Pearson on the #27 Yamaha and Matt Weidman on the #20 Honda were the other heat winners on the day.
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AMA Flat Track action at Gas City, Indiana was hot and heavy last night as the series came back after a two week rain delay to put on a heck of a show for the meager crowd that did show up to see the best stars on dirt battle it out at the Gas City/I-69 Speedway short track event.
With K&N Filters coming on board as the title sponsor for AMA Flat Track, it was a great event to show off the new logo and title sponsors for the racers and fans. Flat Track manager Mike Kidd unveiled the new logo on FlatTrack.com earlier in the week and the new look is great. We discussed briefly during the evening's program the great look and how nice it is to have a logo to represent and identify flat track with after so many years. Hats and helmets off to Mike and the AMA Flat Track team for getting last night's program off in grand style with a tidy and tightly-run event for all to see.
The story of the night, however, belonged to Henry Wiles on the #1 Don's/Monster Energy Kawasaki who dominated the program in winning his heat and the dash for cash to go along with his main event win. Missing out on top qualifier by .050 seconds, Wiles earned his 10th main event win in the singles class by motoring out front for the entire evening. Even after a near mid-race red flag for fallen rider #53 Don Taylor out of Canada, Henry jumped back out and lead from flag to flag. What seemed to be his only bobble on the day came in his heat race win where he slipped back towards the rear of the field, only to fight his way around the outside to swoop around the field for the win. Superman would have been proud of that ride as he was obviously a man possessed in getting back to the front.
Jared Mees on the #21 and Smokin' Joe Kopp (2000 AMA Grand National Champion) on the #3 swapped positions after the re-start with Mees getting the nod. Heat one winner Rob Pearson on the #27 Yamaha and Jethro Halbert on the #69 Yamaha rounded out the top five.

Many thanks to my good friend Larry Lawrence (TheRiderFiles.com) for letting me tag along to the event that he covered for Cycle News. You can read his race report and check out the full results below.

Next stop on the tour is Lima, OH., on Saturday June 26th for the half-mile on the legendary pea gravel track. Riders will put their singles bikes back in their transporters and bring out the big twins for the hugely popular Lima race.
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Thanks to Double L and CycleNews.com for the official story on last night's action:
http://www.cyclenews.com/articles/flat-track/2010/06/19/wiles-on-the-gas-in-gas-city
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Thanks as well to AMA Pro Racing and AMA Flat Track for the official results for the evening's events:

http://amaproracing.com/ft/news/index.cfm?cid=38175

http://results.amaproracing.com/pdfresults/ft/2010/06-gascity/
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