Indian Motorcycle Rogers Racing’s Jared Mees went into 2017 hell-bent on getting his number-one plate back. And he’s made a good start with two very impressive back-to-back wins - a dominant run at the inaugural Daytona TT and a scrap for victory at the Atlanta Short Track. Those results weren’t only impressive but they made history by being Indian Motorcycle’s first triumphs on the Indian Scout FTR750 and Mees’ first TT and Short Track success to complete the dirt track Grand Slam. For all those in attendance and tuning-in to the action it was apparent that Mees was committed to making something special happen Saturday night in Atlanta.

You really wanted that win…

Yeah, I’m just in a good place right now, physically and mentally, and just got a good team. There should be no reason why we aren’t winning like that, honestly. The work’s put in. The work’s done. It’s time to come here and have fun and do what I push hard for all week long. It’s showing and I’m having a good time. We get better and better every weekend, and so does everybody else, that’s why we’ve just got to try to stay ahead. Hats off to Indian Motorcycle – we went one, two and three this early in the game.

You can’t shake those other guys…

Heck no, especially with the motorcycle that we’re on. The motorcycle’s really good. They’ve got good riders and good people working on them. It’s awesome.

Do you think you’re riding better than you ever have? 

That would be a question for Kenny Tolbert [his tuner], I guess. He’s the one that monitors me and everything. Ask the team that… But I feel good. I’m just putting in the work, but who knows? I want it bad. I can tell you that. Losing last year - the championship, I got beat and the guy that won it deserved it; earned it no doubt. I’ll admit, I went through the winter just kind of bitter about it. Bitter that I didn’t get the job done because I felt like I rode the best I ever did in my career last year and didn’t get what I felt like we should have for how good we rode. We got flat-out beat. Like I said, there’s no excuses, I’m just saying I went through the winter basically ready to go. Like, ‘man, I’m ready to get this championship going and I want to get back that number-one plate’. It’s going to be tough. Bryan’s [Smith] riding extremely well right now as well. By no means is it going to be easy but I’m really looking forward to it.