Cycle News

VOL. 51 ISSUE 50 DECEMBER 16, 2014 P173 up ground by gaining valuable qualifying points since Krawiec had consistently qualified at the top of the field all season. "I was number one when we got to the Countdown, but I never had the mindset that the championship was mine to lose," Hines said. "To be bru- tally honest, I was jealous of Eddie [Krawiec]. He was so fast and so consistent. I knew if I stumbled during the Count- down he'd just get on a roll and run away with it. I know how many number one seeds win championships. I'd seen Eddie make up 125 points before and we also had the Arana's to think about. I wasn't sure what they had in store for us. I tried to keep a positive mindset but I also knew we had a lot of work left to do." The first Countdown event was scheduled for zMax Dragway in Concord, North Carolina, but fi- nal eliminations were moved to Dallas, Texas the following week due to problems with the racing sur- face, which meant that the first two rounds would be contested on back-to-back days. Krawiec won the Charlotte race and took over the points lead, but Hines responded a day later by winning the Dallas race to re-gain the top spot. During the Dal- las race, Krawiec went out in the first round after his bike broke against Fred Camarena. "When that race got moved from Charlotte to Dallas that was a blessing in disguise for me be- cause my bike wasn't running that well when we were in Charlotte," said Hines. "In the second round I beat Matt Smith on a holeshot and I re- member thinking that was 20 points that I might need later. After we left Dallas, I felt I could breathe a little easier, but at the same time, I'm the type who counts every point so I wasn't about to cel- ebrate yet. I knew there was still a lot of work to be done over the last four races." Hines rode to a runner-up finish against White Alligator Suzuki's Jerry Savoie in St. Louis and then red-lighted a week later in the semifinals in Reading, Pennsylvania, an event that was won by Krawiec. At that point, there were just two races remaining in the season and the Harley teammates were separated by just 25 points. "I had a lot of mixed emotions after Reading," Hines said. "On one hand, Eddie and I had sepa- rated ourselves from the pack so we were pretty sure that the championship was going to come back to our shop which is always our goal. We figured that barring something really unusual, we were going to finish first and second. Personally, I still wanted that championship and I knew he wasn't going to make it easy on me." Actually, Krawiec did help make it easy on Hines when he lost in the second round of the penulti- mate event in Las Vegas. Hines did his part by win- ning his sixth race of the season to open an almost insurmountable 92-point lead with just the Auto Club NHRA Finals in Pomona left on the sched- ule. Later, Hines admitted that the Las Vegas race was the most pressure he'd ever faced during his career. "I was a wreck," he said. "I almost threw up before every round. I remember standing at the "BUILDING THAT NEW BIKE PROBABLY WASN'T TOTALLY NECESSARY, BUT IT FORCED US TO FIGURE A FEW THINGS OUT AND WE BECAME STRONGER BECAUSE OF IT."

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