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team. For the first time, both riders,
Andrew Hines and G.T. Tonglet,
made the field, and both advanced to
the second round. Hines, who made it
to the semifinals of the season-opening event in Gainesville, ran a 7.17 in
his opening round race against Sean
Conner. Hines' run was not only the
quickest V-twin pass ever, but it was
also just a hundredth of a second
slower than the quickest run of the
weekend, which was made by Scali.
The Screamin' Eagle bikes routinely
run near the 190-mph mark, a sure
indication that they have as much if
not more horsepower than their Suzuki and Kawasaki counterparts.
"We had been having a lot of
breakage, but we installed some new
cylinders, and that has fixed the
problem," team owner and crew chief
Byron Hines said. "We can lean on
them now. It took us a long time to
get here, but now we're finally beginning to see some results."
Tonglet was another of the riders
who was bitten by a red-light during
his second round race against Scali,
while Hines was leading Gann before
his bike made a move toward the
wall, and he was forced to lift.
Scali and Brown are known as two
of the quickest-reacting riders in the
class so it was not a big surprise that
the final was decided via a red-light
as Brown jumped the gun, allowing
Scali to win with a 7.19.
"I have a fast bike, so a lot of the
people I race have to try and cut the
light close," Scali said. "With these
new LED lights, it's hard not to redlight. We've tried everything we can
think of in order to keep the bike
from reacting so quickly. It has really
made it hard to race."
Brown, who has fouled out of two
of the first three races of the 2003
season, was quick to agree with
Scali.
"It's the same old story. I watched
the yellow lights come on, dumped
the clutch, and the red-light came
on," Brown said. "It's frustrating. I go
up there with a death-grip on the
clutch lever, trying not to red-light,
and I still do. NHRA has to realize
that the Pro Stock Bikes react quicker
than the cars, even Top Fuel and
Funny Cars, and any good rider can
red-light at will. They should either go
back to the old bulbs or program
some delay into the timing system to
slow our reaction times down. I don't
think the fans really want to see every
race decided by a red-light. I'm halftempted to just sit on the starting line
and let whoever I'm racing go first.
Chances are, they're going to foul. I
could win a race without ever leaving
the starting line."
eN
Atlanta Dragway
Atlanta, Georgia
Resuhs: May 1·4, 2003 [Round 3 of 151
PRO STOCK FINAL: I. Geno Scali (Suz)
7.19/186.82; 2. Antron Brown (Suz) 7.24/172.89.
NHRA POWERADE PRO STOCK MOTORCYCLE
SERIES POINTS STANDINGS (After 3 of 15
events): I. Gena Scali (272/1 win); 2. Angelle Savoie
(268/2 wins); 3. Antran Brown (224) 4. Shawn Gann
(186) 5. Crai9 Treble (163).
Upcoming Rounds:
Round 4 - Englishtown, New Jersey, May 15-18
Round 5 - Joliet, Illinois, May 29-June 1
Yoshimura would like to congratulate Mat Mladin, Aaron Yates, and Ben Spies
for their dominating performances at Infineon Raceway. Mat and Aaron had
the competiton seeing double when they took their Suzuki Yoshimura GSXR1000's and captured 1st and 2nd in both AMA Superbike races. Ben claimed
his second straight victory in the Formula Extreme class aboard his Suzuki
Yoshimura GSX-R100.
SUZUKI
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