Jared Mees claimed redemption in Thursday night’s Harley-Davidson Flat-Track Racing main event during the opening night for ESPN’s Summer X Games at Circuit of The Americas in Austin, Texas. Mees (No. 9 Las Vegas Harley-Davidson XR750) won by a margin of 0.369 of a second over Kenny Coolbeth, Jr. (No. 2 Zanotti Harley-Davidson XR750) with Brad “The Bullet” Baker finishing third aboard the No. 6 Factory Harley-Davidson XR750.
Mees also secured the inaugural AMA Pro Flat Track win at the Harley-Davidson Lone Star Half-Mile at COTA in April and has bragging rights to call himself the king of the half-mile circuit. Mees came to Austin with a purpose, having suffered a mechanical failure on the last lap while leading the race in last year’s X Games, and he used that memory as motivation during Thursday night’s performance.
“It’s awesome,” Mees said. “It’s probably one of the biggest highlights in my career. It feels like I just won the Grand National Championship, honestly. Last year when we got invited to come to the X Games, I wanted to be the first guy to win it. I was so close and it didn’t happen and I heard about it until tonight. I was bitter and upset. But to come here and to win it and to also win in April, I feel like I am definitely the dominant guy. My initial thought as I went through the finish line was, ‘Hallelujah’ and I’m so glad we got it in and I got what I wanted.”
