VOL. 51 ISSUE 50 DECEMBER 16, 2014 P169
"Over the winter we saw a lot of gains and we
were pretty positive heading into the season,
but you never know exactly what you have until
you get to the first race and compete against
everyone else," Hines said. "You can't tell how
you stack up by what you see on the dyno and
you can't even tell during testing because you
have no idea what the other guys are doing.
You have to wait until you get to the first race
and everyone qualifies and races side-by-side
under the same conditions. That's the only
way to know where you really stand."
In Gainesville, Hines qualified number four
and Krawiec was number six and even though
both riders lost in the quarterfinal round, they
felt that they'd be competitive. Two weeks later
at the Four-Wide Nationals in Charlotte, the
unique event that features drag racing across
four lanes simultaneously, Hines earned his
first win of the season when he defeated
Krawiec, Scotty Pollacheck, and John Hall in
the final round.
After his win in Charlotte, Hines took over
the top spot in the points standings and held
it throughout the summer months. At the Eng-
lishtown, New Jersey round in June, Hines
won again and also made the fastest run of
the year at 199.23 mph, just missing the long-
awaited 200-mph barrier.
Despite their success, Hines and his team
were not completely satisfied with their perfor-
mance. As quick as it was at times, they felt
the bike lacked consistency and would not al-
ways respond to the tuning changes that the
team, led by Hines' brother, Matt, made to it.
In a bold move, the Vance & Hines squad de-
cided to build a new bike at mid-season, and
they made the decision to do it in a three-day
window between the back-to-back events in
Chicago and Norwalk, Ohio.
"Maybe it wasn't totally necessary to build a
new bike, but we'd been having consistency
issues all year and that new bike helped re-
Hines took a
gamble and
rebuilt his bike
with a three-day
window between
the Chicago and
Norwalk, Ohio
rounds.
