Henry Wiles fell off a roof in June and busted both wrists – his season was over right? Not so fast. Thanks to some excellent medical care and being a quick healer and somehow staying in shape in spite of the injuries and just being plain fast on the Peoria TT course, Wiles made a dramatic comeback to the AMA Grand National Singles Championship by taking his fifth-straight Peoria TT National win.

Wiles is so good at Peoria, that the Prince of Peoria, Chris Carr, was quoted as saying, “We’re all riding at 100 percent here while Henry is riding at about 104 percent right now.”

Wiles got by JR Schnabel coming out of the first turn and went on to stretch out his lead by the end of the race by 3.4 seconds. His lead was even bigger, but he backed off in the closing laps on his Kawasaki USA/Jones Bros./DPC Racing No. 17 Kawasaki KX450F-based machine.

2003 Peoria winner Schnabel finished second after a tough battle with Shaun Russell, Michael Kirkness and Joe Kopp. Russell edged out Kirkness to round out the podium finishers. Kopp was right there until late in the race when he nearly unloaded and decided to back off for a lonely fifth.

The all-time Peoria TT wins leader Carr finished sixth, about three seconds back from Kopp.

Sammy Halbert, (the leader of the mythical combined AMA Grand National Championship) was seventh, just ahead of No. 1 plate holder Jake Johnson. Byran Smith and Brandan Bergen rounded out the top 10.

Wiles leads the GNC Singles standings by 14 points over Schnabel going into the final round at the Springfield Short Track that will be held Sept. 5.

One major development was a hard crash in qualifying by GNC Twins leader Jared Mees. Mees went to the hospital to be checked out and fortunately was found to have no broken bones, but he was too beat up to race this weekend. Hopefully he can recover and be strong enough to race at the Indy Mile this coming Saturday.

The Pro Singles came down to an excellent two-rider duel for the win on the final lap. At the checkered flag it was J.D. Beach holding off Jeffrey Carver to score his second victory of the season. Series leader Brad Baker took third and holds a five-point lead on James Rispoli in the standings. Rispoli was fifth at Peoria, just a hair behind Kurtis Lee.

It was a picture perfect Peoria and again the classic race hosted a big crowd, in spite of the rotten economy the Peoria area is suffering through these days.

The Grand National riders will travel east on I-74 and get ready for the Indy Mile this Saturday, the race part of the big Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix weekend. Last year Indy was the best attended race in the series. It promises to be another standing-room only crowd this weekend.

Check back for more photos from Peoria tomorrow.