That mission was to remind the world why the factory Indian pilot is considered one of the greatest to ever circulate a big track at speed while extracting maximum points in the proving.
Mees did just that, shaking free of a concerted effort to prevent him from running clean laps and then managing just enough of a gap to dissuade any desperate late strikes, even if a wall of smoke left by Dalton Gauthier’s expired Royal Enfield drew his trio of pursuers a bit closer than he would have preferred with two laps remaining.
He ultimately held strong to win by nearly four-tenths of a second, earning his 75th career Grand National Championship victory in the process. It also further underlined his modern-day Mile mastery, representing his 28th such victory to move within one of Chris Carr for second in the discipline’s all-time order. Remarkably, 25 of those 28 have come since he joined Indian in 2017, an era in which he’s racked up a stunning 64 percent (and climbing) victory rate on the Miles.
The only downside of Mees’s dominant evening was that his primary title rival, Estenson Racing Yamaha’s Dallas Daniels, also accomplished exactly what he needed at the DuQuoin Mile.
While Daniels would have loved to have beaten Mees straight-up at one of the rounds where his hopes for an unprecedented 10th Grand National Championship appear to hinge, merely containing the ground gained by the champ to four points when down by 19 with just six races remaining was a significant big-picture win for the challenger.
It could have easily been a seven- or nine-point swing, with Daniels harried throughout by Memphis Shades/Sody Ent Yamaha’s Brandon Price and Rick Ware Racing KTM’s Briar Bauman.
Even though it could have been argued that Daniels should have accepted Mees’ victory as inevitable and worried more about the riders behind him as opposed to the one in front of him, that number-one-plated carrot proved to be just enough of a lure to keep the Estenson pilot 0.055 of a second ahead of Price and 0.297 of a second ahead of Bauman at the checkered flag.
By contrast, the main did not play out as well for the other major GNC title contender, Mission Roof Systems’ Brandon Robinson, who came into DuQuoin ranked second in the points and with a strong track record at the Miles.
Robinson got away in 10th but worked his way into the second group, fighting for fifth. He took control of that position when the riders took the halfway flags but faded to an eventual eighth. As a result, he’s now third in the points and 30 back of Daniels, an imposing deficit to erase considering the lack of rounds remaining, Daniels’ perfect podium record, and the selection of the tracks to come.
Price said, “It feels better than a normal podium. I had to work for it today. I’ve been sick all week. I was in the hospital earlier this week. And to come out here and get a podium at the ‘Magic Mile,’ it’s so awesome. Halfway through that main event, I was feeling it, but I kept my head down and tried to stay behind Dallas and Briar to let them tow us around and maybe catch Jared. We just couldn’t do it.”
Fifth was instead taken by Rackley Racing’s Davis Fisher, who used his superior Mile experience to outfox a pair of up-and-coming rookies in GOMR’s Davis Fisher and Zanotti Racing’s Trevor Brunner, edging them by 0.090 of a second and 0.132 of a second, respectively. Behind Robinson, RVR/Schaeffer’s Motorsports’ Cameron Smith and Fairway Ford’s Jarod Vanderkooi rounded out the top 10.
