DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — J.D. Beach scored a milestone victory as the Progressive American Flat Track season resumed with Saturday’s Progressive Laconia Short Track at New Hampshire Motor Speedway.
With an extraordinarily technical surface, passing was key and the start was crucial.
Beach earned the top pick of starting positions with his performance in the lead-up to the Mission SuperTwins main event, but appeared to throw his advantage away by slipping down to third in the race’s opening corner.
However, Beach somehow slashed past both Briar Bauman and Jared Mees in less than a quarter mile to reassert his dominance. He was effectively perfect from that point forward, never providing another rider with any hope of stealing away the victory.
While Yamaha had gone nearly a half-century between oval wins prior to the Mission Red Mile I triumph of Beach’s Estenson Yamaha teammate Dallas Daniels, it took just two weeks to add another.
The victory also happened to be the first oval win of Beach’s Progressive AFT career, to go along with his four prior TT victories.
As a result of today’s points haul, Beach now holds the early advantage in the recently announced Progressive Triple Crown.
He said, “I felt great. Thanks to the whole team — this track has been rough. It’s been a long day, but we squeaked out a win. It feels amazing to finally win on an oval. We’ve still got a lot of races to go, but I’m looking forward to it.”
Due to a poor start that shuffled him back in the pack, Daniels was unable to give Beach a run for the win. However, Daniels still managed to charge all the way to second place at the checkered flag.
It was a rewarding 1-2 for Estenson Yamaha who backed up their mile excellence with an even more convincing outing at a short track.
After being overtaken by Daniels, Jarod Vanderkooi followed the rising star up the order. With less than two minutes remaining, he made his way past Briar Bauman and ‘19 Laconia Short Track winner Bronson Bauman to claim the final spot on the box.
Bronson ultimately finished fourth with Briar fifth after the Baumans waged a brother vs. brother duel for the runner-up spot.
Reigning champion Mees never did find his typical front-running form, ultimately coming home in sixth position. Despite suffering his worst finish of the season, Mees continues to lead the title fight.
However, Daniels is now just 15 points back, while Briar and Beach remain significant contenders as well. Davis Fisher, Jesse Janisch, Brandon Robinson and Dan Bromley completed the top ten.
Sammy Halbert also made his return to racing following a terrifying crash and subsequent injury at last year’s Charlotte Half-Mile. Halbert ran as high as fourth before eventually fading back to eleventh.
In the Mission Production Twins class, Billy “the Kid” Ross earned his first Progressive AFT victory in dramatic, come-from-behind fashion in Saturday’s main event. For just over six minutes, the race seemed all but certain to go to championship leader Jesse Janisch — a one-time TT ace who added half-mile and mile victories to his résumé in recent weeks.
The combination of a few small mistakes on an unforgiving track and heavy lap traffic saw Janisch’s hard-earned gap eaten away, allowing 17-year-old Ross to close back to striking distance as they approached the final two laps.
Ross proceeded to pounce when Janisch made a minor mistake with just over a lap to go, then Ross successfully defended the position to the checkered flag.
The victory wasn’t just the first of Ross’ young career, it was his first Mission Production Twins result better than tenth and the first top-five of his pro career.
“I can’t even take it all in yet,” Ross said. “I feel like it’s been coming for a couple races now, but I’m just glad it happened here. I almost settled in behind Jesse, but then he made a little bobble and I was like, ‘Okay, I’ve got to take advantage.’ It was a fun race.”
A few seconds back, the “partially-retired” Dan Bromley showed he’s still got his chops with a strong ride to third place. As a result, Bromley stands two-for-two in podiums this year, following his runner-up at the season opener in Volusia.
Cory Texter once again salvaged a decent result out of a less-than-perfect round. The defending class champ executed successive passes on sixth-placed Cole Zabala and fifth-placed Johnny Lewis to minimize the day’s damage with a fourth-place finish.
Meanwhile, it was a second consecutive tough outing for former points leader Nick Armstrong who ended up 13th. Janisch has now expanded his points lead from one to six over Texter, while Armstrong now sits a distant third.
In the Parts Unlimited AFT Singles, title leader Kody Kopp was in a class of his own all day long.
The prodigious Kopp was fastest in every practice and qualifying session, won his semi and the Al Lamb’s Dallas Honda Challenge, and then stamped his authority through multiple starts and stops in a three-time red-flagged main event.
The field was gifted a pair of late Hail Marys, first when the charging Gage Smith crashed with a minute-and-a-half remaining on the clock and then again when Michael Inderbitzin had an incident shortly after the restart. While the red flags deleted Kopp’s six-second advantage, they may have done him a favor by clearing out the possibility of encountering trouble in traffic in his final sprint to the flag.
The victory was Kopp’s third of the season.
That, combined with an eighth on the part of title rival Morgen Mischler and the DNS of the injured Max Whale, allowed Kopp to open up his championship advantage further over Mischler and Whale.
Despite his strong championship position, 17-year-old Kopp remains focused on the here and now.
He said, “It’s too early to think about that. We’re just playing it race-by-race. I can’t believe the opportunity this team has given me. It’s been so great for myself and my family.”
Behind Kopp, Trent Lowe narrowly edged rookie Chase Saathoff for second at the stripe by 0.019 seconds.
It was an impressive performance for both riders, with Lowe securing his second podium in the most recent three races. Saathoff, meanwhile, earned his first Progressive AFT podium with a third place finish, despite having to start from the back of the field after forcing the race’s first red flag.
Trevor Brunner took fourth ahead of Mission Red Mile II winner Dalton Gauthier who rounded out the top five.