PEORIA,IL. (Aug. 21, 2011) -- Henry Wiles continued his domination of the
Peoria TT National on Sunday. The Monster Energy Kawasaki rider from
Winn, Michigan, led all 25 laps of the final to earn his seventh
straight victory in the prestigious race. The victory puts Wiles within
one victory of tying Chris Carr’s record of eight straight Peoria TT
wins.
Jared Mees finished runner up to Wiles, 1.560 seconds back, and just ahead of series rival Sammy Halbert,
who rounded out the podium. It was a very good day for Mess, getting
the points from his second-place finish in the national, combined with
his victory in the Dash for Cash, means that Mees has closed to within three points of Halbert in the series standings.
Jake Johnson finished fourth, but in spite of a solid finish, lost ground in the standings with Halbert and Mees
finishing in front of him. Robert Pearson scored an excellent fifth,
edging out retiring veteran Carr, who spent much of the day being
lavished with honors during his final appearance in the race where he
became known as the Prince of Peoria.
Matt Weidman
was seventh, in the same group with Pearson and Carr. Then there was
nearly a four-second gap back to eighth-place Bryan Smith, who edged
Kenny Coolbeth Jr. and Johnny Lewis, the final of the top -ten finishers.
With
Wiles still not 100 percent healthy after his left knee reconstruction,
it was thought that he might be vulnerable. But Wiles quickly
put those thoughts to rest when he topped timed qualifying and then won
the fastest heat race to win the pole. The only thing Wiles didn’t dominate was the Dash for Cash, won by Mees, leaving some question as to whether Wiles might be beatable.
In
the final Wiles nailed a good start and immediately opened a gap on the
field. Wiles said that in spite of getting to a quick lead his bike wasn’t handling well and he nearly crashed coming off the jump one lap. That allowed Mees
to rapidly close, to the point that it looked like it was be a battle
to the finish. But Wiles rallied from his mistake and in the final
couple of laps built back his gap on Mees.
“I was just happy to be out there this year much less win this race,” Wiles said afterwards.
“To come back this quickly from
knee surgery and to be able to win this race even though I’m not at
full strength is really more than I could have hoped for.Wiles said the
handling of his bike was a major obstacle. “I won the race on probably
the worse-handling bike I’ve ever had
at Peoria. I came so close to screwing up big time off the jump that one
lap. I thought for just a second that my streak might be over, but
fortunately I was able to save the thing.”