Cycle News

DRAG RACING NHRA COUNTDOWN TO THE CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND 4/OCTOBER 5, 2014 MAPLE GROVE RACEWAY/READING, PENNSYLVANIA P92 awesome. "I was actually really disap- pointed with myself in the semi- finals against Matt Smith. I had a .07 reaction time. "I'm usually in the .02 to .03 range. I could have been vulnerable and I knew I had to be better in the final round." Krawiec was much better off the starting line in the final with a .020 reaction time but he was still slightly behind Pollacheck's .011 light. Krawiec quickly made up the difference and rolled to his quickest pass of the event, a 6.79 to cover Pollacheck's 6.85. "Anytime you race Scotty Polla- check, the first thing is he hasn't won yet so he's hungry," Krawiec said. "Second of all, he's a great racer. Scotty is one of the best, if not the best, on the Tree out here so I didn't want to give him much. My goal was to go up there, hit the Tree hard, and hopefully walk out of here with a Wally [trophy] and that's the way it happened." Pollacheck has won races in almost every motorcycle drag racing series he's ever compet- ed, but he remains winless in the Pro Stock Motorcycle class in five final rounds. His path to the final was not easy and included a broken spark plug and a bad sensor but somehow he perse- vered. "We had all kinds of gremlins," Pollacheck said. "We feel like we finally found something right before the final and it turned out to be a great weekend. I'm just glad the damn bike finally start- ed to run like it should. We ran good in the final but just didn't have anything for Eddie's 6.79. I just could have used a bit more luck." CN FINAL 1. Eddie Krawiec (Harley-Davidson) 6.793/197.13 mph 2. Scotty Pollacheck (Buell) 6.853/193.82 mph Briefly... Brian Pretzel qualified for his first Pro Stock Motorcycle race at the re- cent Charlotte event, but didn't get to run in eliminations after the event was postponed and moved to Dallas. In Reading, Pretzel got to make his first race-day start on his Suzuki, but his 7.17 was no match for low qualifier Hector Arana Jr.'s 6.81. There was clearly daylight under the front tire of Jerry Savoie's White Al- ligator Suzuki when he crossed the finish line at almost 195 mph in his first round win over John Hall. "With the conditions we have right now, we're making a lot more power than usual," said Savoie. "I was actually really lucky to pull that one out be- cause the bike didn't shift twice. It should have run even better than it did." It took just three races in her come- back tour for Angelle Sampey to make the best run of her career when she qualified the Star Racing Buell with a 6.868. Sampey's best prior run was a 6.87 during the 2009 season. Steve Johnson's slim chances of winning the championship ended in the first round when he red-lighted against Adam Arana in round one. Johnson has a win and two runner- up finishes this season, but he en- ters the penultimate race of the sea- son 200-points behind leader Hines. Andrew Hines had a chance to join teammate Krawiec in the final, but his weekend ended early when he red-lighted in the semi-finals against Pollacheck. To make matters worse, Hines' bike broke just off the starting line. Krawiec is now 20 points behind his teammate Andrew Hines.

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