Cycle News

VOL. 50 ISSUE 43 OCTOBER 29, 2013 P59 Briefly... Viper Motorcycle Co. Buell's Matt Smith clinched his second-career NHRA Mello Yello Series Pro Stock Championship in style – with a win in Las Vegas. after a win over PiranaZ Buell's Shawn Gann in the final four. "I haven't slept very well in three or four nights," Smith said. "In 2008 I thought I had the title wrapped up and we had an electrical failure and it cost us. You never know when something stupid might happen. That was in the back of my mind all day. We didn't make good runs early in the day but we made a pretty bold tuning call; I don't want to At some point, Steve Johnson is going to accept the fact that he's actually a quality Pro Stock motorcycle crew chief. Almost every time his Vance & Hines-powered Suzuki makes a good run, which lately has been more often than not, Johnson is quick to deflect the praise, or note that he simply got lucky with his tuning calls. After qualifying number two in Las Vegas with a 6.945, Johnson acknowledges that perhaps he knows more than he lets on. "Obviously, I've been around these bikes for a while and I do pay attention," Johnson said. "The problem is that I do everything around here. I don't just ride or tune the bike, but I'm also the hospitality person and the team manager so sometimes I forget the simple stuff. Yesterday, the bike bogged on the first run so we made some adjustments and it picked up." After red lighting at the last event in Reading, Hector Arana Jr. was clearly not happy with the starting line tactics of opponent LE Tonglet who "double-bulbed" by lighting both stage lights nearly simultaneously. "I should have burned his ass down," said Arana Jr., vowing that the next time they raced things would be different. As fate would have it, Tonglet and Arana Jr. squared off again in the first round in Las Vegas and true to his word, Arana Jr. was not prepared to stage first. After a lengthy burndown, Tonglet did indeed stage first but won the round with a 7.03 after Arana's bike stalled on the starting line. "I'm sure I'll get blamed for that [Arana's bike stalling] too," said Tonglet. "I mean, if he makes a run, more than likely he's going to beat us. I wasn't trying to get into a burndown with him. I was just giving him plenty of time to get his thoughts together and stage. I actually hope we get to race again in Pomona. It's kind of fun." The rest of the Arana team fared no better as Hector Arana Sr. and son, Adam, were also sidelined after the opening round of eliminations. Hector Sr. had to pull in the clutch early after his bike wouldn't shift into third gear. "It just didn't shift into third," Hector Sr. said. "It hit the rev limiter, and once it hit the rev limiter I was hoping it would unload. I kept hitting the shifter but it wouldn't shift. All I could do is pull in the clutch. It was over." Rookie Adam managed to make a very respectable 6.94-seccnd run, but it was accompanied by a redlight start against Tough Girl Designs Suzuki's Katie Sullivan. He admitted watching his older brother and father lose hard-luck races in front of him may have affected his preparation. "I didn't want to lose," Adam said. "I thought I saw the light but I don't know. Stuff happens. This is hard and it bothers me. This one is about as tough a loss as I've had all year. I had a great qualifying position and the bike ran excellent. I just messed up on the tree." A total of 24 bikes attempted to qualify for the 16 available race-day starting spots that produced a bump spot of 7.087. The non-qualifiers were Mike Berry, Jim Underdahl, Fred Camerena, Michael Phillips, Redell Harris, Baily Whitaker, Jim Surber, and Rhett Lougheed. The Las Vegas race was also not kind to the Screamin' Eagle Harley-Davidson team as riders Eddie continued on next page

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