Cycle News

DRAG RACING NHRA PRO STOCK SERIES ROUND 3/SEPTEMBER 28, 2014 GATEWAY MOTORSPORTS PARK/ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI P102 Krawiec was maybe his big- gest win of the season. Hines won the round on a starting line holeshot, with his 6.874 defeat- ing Krawiec's quicker 6.863. "It was huge," said Hines. "We broke a valve spring be- fore that round and really had to thrash to get it fixed. We man- aged to get the bike back to- gether just in time for that race and then to go out and beat Eddie on a holeshot was just enormous. That round could easily decide the champion- ship. Eddie and I have a pretty good lead over third place right now so our goal would be to have it locked up for the Harley team when we leave Reading next week." CN FINAL Jerry Savoie (Suzuki) 6.871/196.53 mph Andrew Hines (Harley-Davidson) 6.881/193.57 mph Briefly... Jerry Savoie is only the second non-Countdown rider to win an NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle race during the Countdown to the Cham- pionship. The other was Andrew Hines, who missed the six-race playoff in 2013, yet delivered a win at the Charlotte round. There were 17 bikes in St. Louis try- ing to qualify for the 16-bike field and the odd-man out was MB Precision Buell's Mike Berry, who struggled to find the right combination for the Gateway Motorsports Park track. Red-lights have long been a prob- lem for NHRA's two wheel racers, but the problem has been held in check in recent years when the Christmas Tree starting system was re-programmed to add a slight delay between the yellow and green lights. That doesn't help explain why six of the 15 races on Sunday were decided by foul starts. Lucas Oil Buell's Hector Arana Jr. made it to the semi final to keep his championship hopes alive, but it wasn't easy. Arana Jr. suffered a me- chanical problem in his first round win over Jimmy Underdahl and had to thrash just to make it back for the next elimination round. "It takes a while to swap out a motor because of the circumstances," Arana Jr. said. "We spun it over and only heard one thing in the front cylinder so we de- cided only to change heads to save time. We saw that and spun it over and heard another noise. We pulled off the other carburetor because we thought it might have been in the cams. Turns out the other head was totally messed up as well." Second-year rider Adam Arana had a slightly better weekend than his older brother, Hector Jr. Adam defeated reigning World Champion Matt Smith in round one and put up a good fight in round two before losing to Eddie Krawiec. "The bike felt bet- ter today but it wasn't enough," Ara- na said. "The bike is still not running the way it should be. I beat Matt and almost had the same reaction time in the second round. That's a good feeling. I just want to go further." Petrolhead Buell's Scotty Polla- check was exceptionally frustrated after he lost to Steve Johnson in the first round. Johnson ran a 6.89 for the win over Pollacheck's 6.90, but the race wasn't as close as it appeared because Pollacheck had a late reaction time. "I expect a lot more from myself," Pollacheck said. "I have a lot of sportsman and brack- et racing experience and I'm sup- posed to be one of the better riders out here. I need to get back in the groove." Savoie (near lane) beat Andrew Hines (far lane) to win the final.

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