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eDRAG RACE -----------------------------------~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~- ~ -- - - - - - - - -- N Winston Championship S R HRA eries: oundI ~ John Myers (far lane) topped engine builder Byron Hines (near lane) in the Slick 50 Pro Stock final at the opening round of the NHRA Winston Championship Series. Myers tops in Texas By Todd Veney HOUSTON,TX, MAR. 5·8 f Slick 50 Nationals Pro Stock winner John Myers dosen't parlay his convincing victory in Houston into an NHRA Championship, he'll be the first. Each of the three previous winners of the first race of NHRA's ex p a n de d Iu-ra ce tour ' (form erl y known as the Supernationals), including Myers himself in 1990, went on to win the championship and more of the remaining even ts ' than all other rid ers combined. Myers, whose slowest race-day pass o n George Bryce's 1428cc/two-valve , Suzuki GSXR (7.71 seconds) was .05second faster than any other rider's best pass, never had a brush with defeat in any of four elimination rounds. . "This is the only way to start the year," said Myers, who bare ly lost the final round of the 1991 race to David Schultz, then spent the rest of the season trying to catch him in the standings, eventually falling just 190 points short. " T his brand-new bike just won't make a bad run," Myers exclaimed after his II th career National event victory in 'exactl y three years with Bryce's Star Racing team . Still work. ing bugs out of the .Kosrnan chassis in the heat of competition, Myers I 24 : qualified second on th e grid with a 7.7 l -second, 172 mph pass and effortlessly swatted 1989 NHRA Champion John Mafaro, Ron Ayers, and perennial top five rider Jim Bern ard off the track in the preliminar y rounds of eli m inatio ns with the most consistent series of laps in P ro Stock history: 7.698/172,7.70 /172, and 7.690/17 3, the last being a new Houston Raceway Park track record. In the final, Myers topped Byron Hines, the famed mastermind behind the success of 24-time National event winner, Terry Van ce. Hines, who has , left his seat in th e Van ce & Hines dyno room for the seat of Greg Underdahl's 1327cc four valve Suzuki GSXR and . qualified on the pole with a 7.701 , 177.54 (the fastest speed in Pro Stock history), shook his way down th e bumpy left lane in the last round and ran just a 7.83/169, his slowest time . of the event. ' . "Byron still made a decent run, considering that he was in the left lane. This is a one- lane race track. You have '. a much better chance of winning if you can keep lane choice (which goes to the rider with th e faster run in the previous round), but I think I would have won in ei the~ lane," said Myers, who ran nearly as good on a qualifying pa ss in the dr eaded left lane (7.72) as his record-setting performances on the smoo ther, tackier right side of the dr agstrip. . Wh en not deflecting praise for his steadil y improving riding skills .:" I' m not th e rid er Dave Schultz or Jim Bern ard or T erry Vance is, I do this just for fun ," Hines, perhaps the bestknown nam e in the pits despite having go ne winless in his young riding career, was demonstrating that, lik e his partner, he knows exactl y what it takes to win . Hin es committed drag ra cing's mo rta l sin - being late (reacti ng to the Christmas tree) - in the first two ro unds, but still flagged down Keith Gra y a n d Norman DeVi ne, who launched a tenth of a second before him, just before the finish lin e with pow erful top-end charges. Hines' 176.81 mph speed in the com e-from-behind win over DeVine was fast enough to back up hi s earlier 177.54 mph blast wit hin the required one perc ent for an official NHRA National record. " I was concentrating more on getting th e record than I was on leaving on time ," admitted Hines, who gave up less than one mph when forced to run a backup engine after his 177 mph mill kicked a connecting rod just before the finish line. By con centrating intently on the Christmas tree and loading the clutch harder in his semi race with former teammate and defending champ Dave Schultz, Hines improved his reac tion time from a sleepy .198-second to .005second. Tha t gave him a jump ' on Schultz, now riding the 1991 cham p ions hip-win ning Kawasaki ZX10 he sold and temporarily borrowed back fro m Finland's Veli Malin. . Schultz left the starting lin e .06-second after Hines with a .067-second reaction time and ran just .02-second faster, 7.77 to 7.79, which left him .04second short a t the finish lin e. '" saw Byron out in front of me the whole way , and' thought, 'Oh, he redlit (fou l-started),' " Schultz said. " T he whole way down the track' thought I had already won . I didn 't find out what happened until I turned off at the end of the tra ck. The cameramen don't like to mak e eye contact with th e loser. II • • • With a clutch .0 18-second reaction time , Hines was nearly as quick out of the gate in the high-pressure final against th e invincibl e Myers as he,had been in the semi fina ls. However, . Myers' reflexes were nearly as quick, and by the time they thumbed the airshift buttons int o second gear, Hines' lead was gone. Even with his slowest run of elim inations, a 7.7 11172, Myers had the race in hand long before the finis h line when Hines' bike shook hard enough to blur his vision and knock his right , foot off the peg. ''' My foot fell behind the exhaust pipe and got burned a little," he said. " But I'm not disappointed about losing this final. I'm pumped about the rest of the season." After qualifying number one, outriding the winningest active drag racer (Schultz), and cracking 176 mph with a less powerful bac kup engine, he should be. (;N