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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/126919
Terry Venee rode his Vence 8a Hines Suzuki GS1160 to enother win end record et Englishtown. Here. he leunches in front of 76.000 fens. In the finel. held Mondey due to rein. Vence (fer lene) beet Peul Miles. 8.291 end 166.96 mph to 8.441 end 149.46 mph. A winning teem: (from left) Byron. Jenice. Metthew Hines; Dengerous Den; NHRA VP Cert Olsen; Terry Venee; Ms. Winstqn; Rick Werd; Jennifer Hines. Andrew Hines is on Terry Venee's bike. NHRA Pro Stock Drag Racing Series: Round 3 Vance wins again, sets record at Raceway Park By John Brasseaux Photos courtesy of National Dragster ENGLISHTOWN, NJ, JULY 12-14 Terry Vance won the NHRA Budweiser Summernationals Pro Stock motorcycle drag race and lowered the NHRA elapsed time record to 8.140 seconds at Raceway Park. The event was round three in the NHRA motorcycle series and was held in conjunction with an NHRA car drag race in 16 front of 75,000 spectators. The win, Vance's 21st NHRA victory since 1977, extended his 1986 series points lead with two rounds remaining. Vance simply dominated. Along with the8.14, he had two other passes under 8.20 and two runs in the'8.20s. All, those runs came with 1OO-mph terminal speeds, except for the final. While Vance qualified at his nor, mal pace, the rest of the field followed with some quick, tightly grouped elapsed times of their own. It took an 8.454 to break into the 16bike field, the quickest in NHRA Pro Stock history. Everyone behind Vance was clustered in elapsed time groups separated by hundredths, and, in some cases, thousandths of a second. That was the case for Jeff Karr, 29, Senior Road Test Editor of Motorcyclist magazine, who entered his first professional drag race ever on a Vance Be Hines Suzuki. Karr, who had only ridden the bike in six passes at Palmdale, California for p-ractice and then three passes in qualifying at Englishtown, turned an 8.461 on his final qualifying pass and missed the cut by 0.007 seconds. Karr, with nine years of motorcycle magazine writing and testing experience, is known as one of the best journalists in the country in terms of drag slIip ability and high performance product testing and it showed at Englishtown. His experiences will be the subject of an upcoming Motorcyclist feature. For the final, run on Monday due to rain on Sunday evening, Vance found himsel£ up against the Kawasaki of Steve Miles. Vance's Suzuki slowed from the Saturday and Sunday pace, but still had more than enough at 8.29 to cover Miles' 8.44. "We were losing compression in the head, which accounted for our slowing times," said Vance. "Also, there was a change in the atmospheric conditions - for the worse - and I was bucking a headwind during the final. The bikes can't tolerate wind as well as the cars can." Though Miles qualified ninth fastest, he really stepped up to run faster times (behind Vance) in eliminations. Miles gained the final berth via a semi-final red-light by "Pizza John" Mafam; in the previous round, Miles defeated Barry Kogut. Miles' progression to the final had started with a first-round lIouncingof Rich Heater, 8.31 to 8.84. Vance's day started out in a typically imp~ive manner. His 8.18 was awesome but not needed when his opponent, Bob Carpenter, redlighted. Vance improved over 0.02 to an 8.16 in a second-round win over Gatornationals winner Rick Stetson, who turned an 8.41. Next came an 8.20 to put away the 8.44 of Ed Dohrmann; then came the rains which postponed the finals for the motorcycles until the morning. The rest of the riders' times also slowed somewhat from Saturday's qualifying. The great lIack conditions and atmospheric conditions that were were present during the first sessions were absent on Sunday. Vance ran an unreal 8.09 in the initial, Saturday session by the time was tossed out after Vance was found lightat the scales by two pounds. Vance now has a total of four NHRA records this year. That includes three elapsed time and one terminal speed mark. Of the three bike races run, he has won two, the other being the Gatornationals. "I won this race last year with an 8.45, which was the bubble in this year's field," said Vance. "We had 22 bikes out for qualifying, where last year there were only 14 that showed up. Everybody is happy with the way things are running; they'd just like to see somebody else win." •