-
- Here in turn 3 Brad Baker leads with James Rispoli looking to go inside. Jeffrey Carver (in blue) is a close third.
-
- Rispoli makes his move to the inside in turn 4 and hits Baker. The impact jerks Baker’s head back.
-
- Rispoli is in trouble here as his bike starts to pitch hard to the right.
-
- Past the point of no return Rispoli sticks out his right leg in a last-ditch effort to save it.
-
- Rispoli now knows he’s going down and he’s looking to where he’s going to land.
-
- Rispoli hits the dirt and starts to roll.
-
- As Rispoli rolls, Carver hits Rispoli’s downed bike.
-
- Carver now goes flying off his bike almost exactly the way Rispoli did an instant earlier.
-
- Carver is now flying through the air putting his arms out to break his fall.
-
- Carver face plants as Rispoli continues to roll.
-
- Rispoli stops rolling as Jeremy Higgins tries to find a way through. Higgins made it and finished third.
-
- Jake Shoemaker finds a way through the melee to finish fifth.
It was all on the line for Brad Baker and James Rispoli at the Springfield Short Track Pro Singles final. Rispoli, 10 points down in the championship, knew he had to finish in front of Baker to have a realistic shot at winning the title in Pomona next month. So Rispoli did what he needed to do and tried to make a desperate inside pass on Baker in the final turn. The result was a hard contact. Hit from behind, Baker’s head jerked from the impact, but he held on to his Honda and guided it to victory. For Rispoli it was the agony of defeat as he crashed giving it everything he could. The innocent bystander of the red-hot battle was third place Jeffrey Carver, who had nowhere to go, hit Rispoli’s bike and joined him on the deck.
