We received a press release from Indian after the Calistoga round and it succinctly sums up the season...
'Indian Motorcycle Racing and the Scout FTR750 secure its 10th first-place finish of the 2017 American Flat Track season with Jared Mees’ dominant performance at the Calistoga Half-Mile. Mees captured his sixth win of the season, and was joined on the podium by fellow Wrecking Crew rider Brad Baker, who placed third. Together, these finishes propel Indian Motorcycle Racing to 25 of 33 podiums on the season.'
That statement propelled me to AFT's website to crunch some numbers on a piece of scrap paper. 11 rounds, 33 podiums positions. Of those 11 possible race wins it pans out like this...
Mees 6
Smith 4
Briar Bauman 1 (the only non-Indian rider to win an AFT race in 2017, Lima on the Zanotti Kawasaki)
Mees has been on the podium in ten of the 11 races, only missing out when he was disqualified from Lima (a race he promotes himself!). Of those ten podiums, only one has been third place.
Smith season has faltered, by his own high standards. He had four back to back wins, but has only had one podium in the last five races. He's still in a close second place though.
Brad Baker has eight podiums, but no wins. Despite this consistency, he is only one point ahead of Sammy Halbert (above, at Calistoga) in the season standings, yet Sammy only has five podiums.
The only other two riders to have been on the podium all year are Henry Wiles (3rd at Daytona TT), Jeffrey Carver (3 at Lima). That's a total of seven riders filling 33 podium spots.
The highest factory Harley rider in the standings is Brandon Robinson. His 86 points total thus far is less that 38% of Mees current 227 points total.
Next round of the AFT season is the Buffalo Chip TT at Sturgis, this Sunday.
AFT Twins Main: 10:30 pm ET (7:30 pm PT). I'm not a betting man, but I don't think it will be an Indian 1-2-3.
Tune-in here: http://fanschoice.tv/watch-live/american-flat-track