Chris Carr Kicks Off Farewell to Flat Track Tour in Winning Style, While J.D. Beach Romps in DuQuoin

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Kenny Tolbert resets the stop watches while Chris Carr readies himself for the re-start in the red flag interrupted Gas City Short Track main event at round six of the AMA Pro Flat Track K&N Filters presented by Motorcycle Superstore.com Grand National Championship Series in June of 2010. The 7-Time AMA Flat Track Grand National Champion and former AMA Superbike Championship Rookie of the Year finished the evening in the 10th spot aboard the KT-prepped #4 Chris Carr Racing/DFW Honda/Lancaster H-D-backed Honda CRF450F.
The pair kicked off their recently announced 'Chris Carr Racing Farewell to Flat Track Tour' in winning style this past weekend at the Southern Illinois Center in DuQuoin, with The Prince of Peoria winning the Open Pro/Am short track final in the Steve Nace Racing event held on Saturday and Sunday. Carr bested a field of riders including J.D. Beach and Illinois rider Rob Pearson in this race, and also brought home a couple of seconds and thirds on the weekend in some of the other race finals.
Round three of the 2011 AMA Pro Flat Track Grand National Championship Series will be held at the beautiful little indoor arena on April 9 when the big boys come into the small community of DuQuoin for their first venture on the short track at this venue. Other riders contesting the weekend's events included 2010 AMA Pro Flat Track Pro Singles Champion Jeffrey Carver, Sammy Halbert, James Rispoli and Brock Schwarzenbacher.
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J.D. Beach talks with some of the fans during a break in the on-track action at the Springfield Short Track round of the AMA Pro Flat Track Series in September 2010. This event was the first for the youngster as an Expert Rookie in the Expert Class after competing in the AMA Pro Flat Track Pro Singles Series, and winning his final events in Peoria and Indy the two previous weekends. Beach had a great start in the Expert Class in bringing the #95C Red Bull/Top 1 Oil/Craig Rogers-sponsored Honda CRF450F home in the third spot in his maiden outing with the big boys, finishing behind event winner and 2-Time AMA Flat Track Singles Champ Henry Wiles and runner-up and eventual '10 AMA Flat Track Grand National Champion Jake Johnson. He also ran the mile event the next day on a Craig Rogers XR, qualifying 14th, finishing fourth in his heat race and bringing it home in 12th on his first outing on the big V-Twin XR750.
J.D. has been racing and winning some of the indoor events during the off-season at the Southern Illinois Center in DuQuoin, which are being hosted by Steve Nace Racing. His mastery of the track showed over this past weekend in his winning five of six races on Saturday and again on Sunday in the Ethan Gillim Memorial event. Other then the previously mentioned Chris Carr's win, Pro Singles competitor James Rispoli was the only other rider to pull off a win at the indoor arena on the DuQuoin State Fairgrounds, with Beach taking home the lion's share of the hardware for his work.
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Flat Track racing got off to a great 2011 season as a National field of riders headed to the Southern Illinois Center at the DuQuoin State Fairgrounds to contest the Steve Nace Racing-hosted Ethan Gillim Memoral event over the weekend. Riders including 7-Time AMA Flat Track Grand National Champion Chris Carr, '09 'mythical' AMA Pro Flat Track Grand National Twins Champion Sammy Halbert and 2010 AMA Pro Flat Track Pro Singles Champion Jeffrey Carver contested the event at the beautiful indoor arena in preparation for the April 9 round three event as part of the 2011 AMA Pro Flat Track Grand National Championship Series schedule.

Rookie Expert J.D. Beach had a career weekend in winning 10 of the 12 events, with Carr and AMA Pro Flat Track Pro Singles competitor James Rispoli taking home the other wins on Saturday and Sunday. With Beach's first foray into 'The Bigs' riding in the Expert Class some five months ago at the Springfield rounds, and his off-season training including contesting some of the other Steve Nace rounds at DuQuoin, the youngster who now calls Kentucky home is more then proving he deserved to step into the Expert Class. And with Daytona just over two months away and round three in DuQuoin just over three months away, look for J.D. to have a great set-up and be ready for the upcoming season of racing in the AMA Flat Track Grand National Championship Series. And look for him to come out strong and smokin'!

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Larry Lawrence was on hand all weekend for the Ethan Gillim Memorial events held at DuQuoin and as always he has some great stuff to show us from the weekend's festivities.

Here's the link to LL's pics from day one on his great site The Rider Files.com:

http://www.theriderfiles.com/?p=8545

Larry also filed this report with Cycle News.com for day one at DuQuoin:

http://www.cyclenews.com/articles/flat-track/2011/01/01/beach-wins-gillim-memorial

Dave Hoenig was on hand over the weekend as well and filed these results for day one over on his Flat Trak Fotos.com site (and within a few days should have more pics, too!):

Pt 1/ST-

http://www.flattrakfotos.com/2011%20Results/RESULTS%2001-01-11st.html

Pt 2/TT-

http://www.flattrakfotos.com/2011%20Results/RESULTS%2001-01-11tt.html
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Here's LL's report on day two at the Southern Illinois Center over on Cycle News.com:

http://www.cyclenews.com/articles/flat-track/2011/01/02/beach-again-in-day-two-at-duquoin

And Larry has some more great pics from day two on Sunday at DuQuoin here at his The Rider Files.com site:

http://www.theriderfiles.com/?p=8553

Dave Hoenig posted these overall results for day two on his Flat Trak Fotos.com site:

Pt 1/ST-

http://www.flattrakfotos.com/2011%20Results/RESULTS%2001-02-11st.html

Pt 2/TT-

http://www.flattrakfotos.com/2011%20Results/RESULTS%2001-02-11tt.html
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Steve Nace Racing has been taking care of the AMA series that used to go by the Hotshoe Series or the 600 Series for several years now. Here's the link to his site where you can also get other event results as they are posted. They run several events throughout the off-season in DuQuoin and then they will run what used to be called the 'regional' races throughout the course of the 'normal' racing season:

http://www.stevenaceracing.com/mcatv.html
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