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H-D's King 2nd In Standings

King moved up from sixth to second place in the AMA Flat Track Series standings.
June 27, 2006

Lima, OH - Rich King may not have won the AMA Ford Quality Checked Flat Track Twins championship series event Saturday at the Allen County Fairgrounds. But he made a big step toward his ultimate goal – the series championship.

With his seventh place finish at the track that suffered through a tornado earlier in the week, King moved up from sixth to second place in the series standings. King qualified 14th for the main event and methodically worked his way up the pack.

"I've never been great there, just so-so but we got the bike to work better and better," King said. "We made a lot of changes and things were going pretty well in the main event. When the red flag came on, I was ninth but during the restart a couple of guys got together in front of me and I rear-ended Jay Springsteen and I was 14th by the first turn with just 15 laps to go. Still, I felt like I was going really well and I passed a lot of guys. We had a great setup, but we just ran out of time."

This is the second time in three events this season that King has made a late-race effort to climb back into the top 10. At the season opening event in Springfield, Ill., King rode from 18th to sixth place in just 11 laps.

"Rich is one of the most competitive riders around and I know it's disappointing for him to not finish on the podium," Harley-Davidson Racing Manager Anne Paluso said. "The team didn't fulfill its own expectations this weekend but for us to walk away from that event with Rich moving up four places in the standings is a real positive for the team.”

King's Screamin' Eagle factory teammate Kenny Coolbeth finished 11th in the first heat but suffered mechanical problems in the semifinal race, failing to qualify for the main event for the first time this season.

Screamin' Eagle Wrecking Crew members Bryan Smith and Jared Mees finished fourth and 12th, respectively.

Smith finished first in the Heat 1 race, qualifying third for the main event. Smith finished fourth, barely missing his first podium finish of the season, just behind race winner Dominic Beaulac, Joe Kopp and Glen Schnabel.

King sits in second place in the point standings, 11 points behind leader Chris Carr as the team prepares to head to the I-96 Speedway in Lake Odessa, Mich., for the July 1 event. Smith is fifth in points with Mees and Coolbeth taking seventh and ninth, respectively.

"Even though it is still way too early to look at the points, I feel pretty good about being in second place," King said. "But there are a lot of things happening right now. What I am most happy about is the way the team worked on the bike and dialed in the setup to get me comfortable enough on the bike to work back into the front. That says a lot about this team. By the end of the race we had one of the faster bikes on the track."

In addition to the direct team sponsorship, Harley-Davidson will also provide support through professional flat track contingency and the Rider Support Verification Program (RSVP). Under the Screamin’ Eagle banner the support will total more than $140,000 throughout the 2006 season. This includes a contingency program for qualified Harley-Davidson XR750 riders on the AMA Flat Track series.



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