Madison: Tom Bradford final summary

Number 1 Too Short for Bradford

Last night's number 1 Pro Stock Motorcycle qualifier lobster combo turned into tonight's first round loser Big Duga's for Tom Bradford...if only Big Duga's were still located across the street from Gateway International the way it was for years. Bradford faced a very dangerous first round match-up in Chicago winner Ryan Schnitz. While Bradford played it safe, Schnitz nailed the tree and laid down his best pass of the weekend to send Tom home early.

"It's a completely different race track today than it was yesterday," said Bradford. True enough, as PSM elapsed time's plummeted across the board in round 1 of eliminations. "But we didn't get a good run. It was poor from the get go. I got left at the light and that scattered my focus and I didn't hit my shift points. I tried to play it a little bit conservative on the tree and you can't do that with Ryan. And of all rounds to run his best pass of the weekend! Then he goes out the next round and runs a .30 something. We just haven't run into any racer luck.

"It's easy to get down on yourself because once you roll up there, everything rides on the riders shoulders. But how can we feel bad about the weekend? We had four really clean starts and runs. There were so many things that were monumental for us-number 1 qualifier, the track record. It is only our 11th start and at times you've got to go back and look at that stuff. We're not discouraged at all and maybe Denver will be my race.

"All in all, it was a great weekend. But I certainly wish we went some more rounds." And earned another lobster...or at least Big Duga's...or some Johnsonville Brats for the Wisconsin homeboy. A sponsorship natural?

-tb