Cycle News

VOL. 50 ISSUE 27 JULY 9, 2013 O AYER ter a tough start, att Smith rallies to ke his first NHRA o Stock win of 2013 think we'll be a contender from this point on." As a team owner, Smith brought four motorcycles to the Norwalk event and managed to put three of them into the field as his wife Angie joined him, along with John Hall, the winner of the recent Epping round. Despite the added workload, Smith main- tains that it doesn't affect his ability to concentrate on his own program. "It doesn't take anything away from my program because we're able to use the data from each bike to work on our tune-up," Smith said. "We're good as long as nothing goes wrong. I was off on my tune-up a little bit earlier this weekend so we changed engines this morning before the first round and each round we gradually got a little better and that's why I'm sitting in the winner's circle right now." In qualifying, Smith was merely average with a 6.96 that was good only for the number-eight spot in the 16bike field. That also meant a potential second round match against former teammate, Michael Ray, who had beaten Smith a week earlier in the final of the Chicago round. In the re-match, Smith got even when he used a starting line holeshot and a 6.95 to defeat Ray's quicker 6.93. "Michael and I do have a bit of a rivalry, but we're also friends and we go golfing together and talk all the time. Last week in Chicago, I squeezed the clutch too hard and was late and he said, 'If that's the best you can do you need to go ahead and retire.' I told him that I'd show him what I could do at P89 Briefly... It was a tough weekend for the Lucas Oil Buell team of Hector Arana Sr. and his sons, Hector Jr., and Adam. Hector Sr. and Jr. both lost in the first round and Adam was gone after round two when he red-lighted against John Hall. "I'm always relaxed," said Adam Arana. "I don't know. I have no excuses; I just messed up. That's all I can really say. I'll learn from it and get better. It seems like John has my number." If Screamin' Eagle Harley-Davidson's Andrew Hines is going to contend for his fourth World Championship, he's going to need to start winning some rounds and do it soon. There are currently three rounds remaining before the top 10 riders are set for the Countdown to the Championship playoffs, and Hines is currently not one of them. Hines currently trails 10th-ranked LE Tonglet by 35 points, which means that he's going to need to win at least two more rounds than Tonglet in the next three events. "We dug ourselves a pretty big hole but we can get out of it," Hines said. "I didn't win a round, but our bikes ran much better this weekend. We just need to keep working and be ready for the next two races in Denver and Sonoma. Nobody here is giving up." Hines' teammate, Eddie Krawiec is now solidly ranked number six in the points standings after reaching the semi finals of the Norwalk race. Krawiec was solidly in the 6.9-second range during the event, but admits that the team's performance is not where he'd like it to be. "We learned quite a bit, but this is still a major work in progress," Krawiec said. "The tune-up is closer and we have it working a little better as a package. We still need about 10 horsepower to have great bikes, but at least we have a bike that can win rounds as long as the rider does his job." It has been more than a month since the continued on next page

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