FT Champ Mees Handles the Road Racers at Vegas Superprestigio, Canuck Lawrence Misses Cut
Jared Mees travelled to Las Vegas from Michigan, gambled and won. In Friday’s final event in the AMA Flat Track National Championship at a new, ultra-short track at the Orleans Casino Arena, Mees scored a safe third in the Feature race and clinched his third overall Grand National crown.
On Saturday night, November 21, on the same track, Mees worked through a crazy-busy set of Heats and Semi races to be one of four Flat Trackers to start the main event. Mees then ran up front and eventually defeated his Flat Track peers and the top racers selected from other disciplines (“All Stars”). Mees is the first winner in the new format, Speedway-inspired, all-comers Invitational Superprestigio of the Americas presented by Yamaha.
Aboard his Las Vegas Harley-Davidson backed Honda single, Mees placed second in the 12 Lap final Q race for Flat Trackers, behind Brad Baker of Eatonville, WA, to earn one of the four spots for “his kind” in the Superprestigio race.
On the “All Stars” side, the final eight road racers to battle for a spot included: former works Buell World Superbike competitor Larry Pegram, Yoshimura Suzuki’s Roger Lee Hayden, rising AMA Pro Joe Roberts, upstart Brit teenager Oliver Brindley, KTM mounted Spanish multi-discipline racer Fran Serra and his Endurance and Supermoto ace team mate Dani Ribalta, Australian MotoGP ace Anthony West and multi discipline young American racer Aaron Colton.
Among the expected stars not to make the cut were Moto America Superbike ace Josh Hayes, Spanish former Moto2 Champ Toni Elias, aggressive works Yamaha racer Jake Gagne, just a few of a strong group who showed considerable speed but lacked consistency – crucial in the hurry-up format chosen for the first American Superprestigio.
In the final “All Star” leg, Pegram out-dueled Hayden for the win, both riders admitting they were saving something for the big final event.
In that 15 lap Main Event, Mees ran second early, then cut under wild man Baker when the just-back-form-injury North-West star clobbered the plastic wall on the outside of the front straight. Baker, frequently millimetres from the barrier on a good lap, continued in second but Mees was now solidly in first.
Mees won over Baker by a second and a half, with Kenny Coolbeth Jr. taking third, another second back. Honda swept the podium. For much of the race, Coolbeth staged a great dice with top “All Star” class competitor and youngest brother Hayden, but road race ace Hayden fell in the final turn mid-race and was classified seventh.
Top “All Star” class Feature race finisher was veteran 40 year old Pegram in fourth with the Foremost Insurance Honda. Roberts had a head’s up run to fifth, while Brindley completed a great evening by placing a very worthy sixth on his Kawasaki single.
The Superprestigio concept was relaunched two years ago in Spain, with much help from new MotoGP star Marc Marquez. While three Spanish road racers took part in Las Vegas, none made it to the main. This was mostly due to bad luck – only four riders from each category could take part in the final, out of an entry of 15 per division.
Photos by Colin Fraser
“What a way to top things off at the end of a great year,” smiled Mees post-race. “I’m almost at a loss for words, it’s really a big deal, winning a Superprestigio. I knew Brad would be tough, he got the best of me in the race before, but I kept my focus. Now Brad and I are heading over to Spain to represent the American dirt trackers.”
“I don’t think they could have designed a better track to create chaos,” joked Mees after his win. “Any time you do something different, its fun. The whole thing was hectic, but it was nothing compared to what we go through in Spain. It’s really cool that it was so fast paced.”
“The way the track was set up, it was racy,” continued Mees. “You could stick somebody, really go hard, like you were racing 100s in my back yard with my buddies. With us having the event the night before, it gave us an advantage, we knew what was going to happen, how the track would change. In the future maybe this can be a stand-alone race.”
Second placed Baker admitted that “I definitely had a wild wall ride, for a flat track style bike! To ride clean on this track is tough, but that’s the goal. It was really fun racing Jared, he rode so good, and I made too many mistakes. I had a bike break, I got hung up on the starting gate in one of my heats – I really can’t complain after coming back on such a rough night!”
Third placed Coolbeth said that “I had a really awesome fight with Hayden, we were really back and forth, it was really aggressive, it was real short track racing. I got to third and I just stayed there. The track was kind of slick, kinda dry, we slowed down our bike so we could go a little faster.”
The sole Canadian invited to the first Superprestigio of the Americas was newly crowned Flat Track Canada Champ Doug Lawrence of Mississauga, ON. Lawrence made his road race debut at the final round of the 2015 Mopar CSBK Series at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park last August, scoring a surprise overall triumph in the invitational debut of the new Kawasaki Ninja 300 spec series. The weekend marked Lawrence’s first-ever trip to old Mosport.
After adjusting his bike after Friday’s racing with gearing and chassis changes, Lawrence had nothing but bad luck in his heats. Although Lawrence got close to making the cut in his Flat Track Semi qualifying race, he stalled his Town Moto Honda in a tight turn while battling for position and was unable to Qualify for his Main.
