NHRA MELLO YELLO PRO STOCK SERIES
DRAG RACING
BY KEVIN MCKENNA
PHOTOGRAPHY BY GARY NASTASE
V
ery few NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle
teams would attempt to build a com-
pletely new bike in three days and bring it
untested to a championship event, but very few
teams have the confidence or the track record
of the Screamin' Eagle Harley-Davidson team.
Frustrated by a recent lack of performance
and running short on possible solutions, three-
time World Champion Andrew Hines and his
brother/crew chief Matt made the bold deci-
sion to build a completely new V-Rod between
the NHRA rounds in Chicago and Norwalk. It
worked out better than they had hoped when
Hines rode the new chassis to his 35th career
NHRA national event title.
"Last Monday, we decided to take our third
chassis and turn it into a race bike and after
three-straight 14-hour days we got it done,"
Hines said. "It was a lot of give and take to get it
to leave the starting line, but after qualifying we
had a lot of little things fall into place.
"We were disastrous in qualifying; that was
the worst I've been this year and when Eddie
[Krawiec, his teammate] came out and went
to number one, I was a little jealous. Saturday
we sat down and threw a tune-up at it and had
quickest winning time of the first round. Then,
we just massaged it during the day. This bike
is easier to ride than my old bike, which used
to wobble down the track a bit. This one was
straight on all four runs today and that's when
we put up big speeds."
After struggling for their first four qualify-
ROUND 7/JULY 6, 2014
SUMMIT MOTORSPORTS PARK/NORWALK, OHIO
P94
No Risk, No Reward
Andrew Hines and the Screamin' Eagle Harley team roll
the dice on a new chassis and come up big.
