Cycle News

VOL. 50 ISSUE 45 NOVEMBER 12, 2013 P75 Briefly... torcycle standings. "My biggest thing on Sunday is the starting line," Arana said. "I need to get the same mentality that I have during qualifying. There is nothing wrong with my bike. For me, it's all mental. I need to do some work and try and figure out a few things. I might even buy a car so I can race weekly at my local track just so I can get some more practice." cas Oil Buell's Hector Arana Sr. and a 6.94 to beat Tough Girl Designs Suzuki's Katie Sullivan. That round proved to be costly as Pollacheck hurt an engine, causing him to slow in the final against Krawiec. "We had a bolt come out of the fuel injection and it got sucked through the engine," Pollacheck said. "The engine was hurt a bit for the final and that's why it only ran 191-mph. We had the bike to win this race, but it just didn't work out that way. I really wanted a win but overall, I'm happy. I had the best year of my career and I'm happy to be racing with Matt Smith." CN Final 1. Eddie Krawiec (Harley-Davidson) 6.918/192.41 mph 2. Scotty Pollacheck (Buell) 6.963/193.57 mph When Jimmy Underdahl rode his Bad Boy Buggies Suzuki to a 6.97 during qualifying, he figured he was safely in the field but he ended up on the bump spot in one of the quickest fields of the year. All 16 starters made six-second runs and it took a 6.90-second run to qualify in the top half of the show. As a part of a small family owned and operated team, Katie Sullivan doesn't get a chance to race in many NHRA Mello Yello Series events, but this season she has shown great progress aboard her Tough Girl Designs Suzuki thanks in a large part to the addition of crew chief Gary Stoffer. Sullivan enjoyed another great race in Pomona when she reached the semi final round. "I'm so stoked right now; this is so much fun," Sullivan said. "I don't race as much as I'd like to, but this is the first time in my career that I've had any kind of stability. I've been riding the same bike all season and I've been working with Gary all year and we're on the same page. It makes it so much easier to concentrate and to be consistent. We don't have all the latest trick parts, but what we have is very good and Gary is so smart. He works well with me and my dad [Charlie]." If things go Sullivan's way, NHRA fans might get a chance to see more of her next season. She is currently weighing her options for 2014 including one that includes a full season ride as part of an existing team. "I definitely want to race more often and I've love to race a full season and see if I can make the top 10," Sullivan said. "That would be my dream. Hopefully, we can work something out and even if we don't, I'm happy as long as I've got a chance to race something." Despite the performance of Pomona champion Krawiec, the Vance & Hines team faces another off-season of research and development on their twovalve engine combination. Last year, the team designed, built and tested a completely new engine combination during the offseason. This year, rider Andrew Hines expects the process to involve fine-tuning their current set-up. "This time we don't have to re-invent the wheel, but that doesn't mean we don't have a lot of work to do," said Hines. "We're still looking at a solid month-anda-half of hard work to try and find more power. We've been putting Band-Aids on some of our problems just to get through the season. Now, we need to work on concrete fixes. We've done a lot this year, but we've done a lot of things that haven't worked. We need to develop some stuff that shows results."

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