IN
THE
WIND
P40
JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT
L
ucas Oil Buell's Hector Arana
Jr. has had arguably the best
bike in the NHRA Pro Stock Mo-
torcycle class for most of the
2015 season. So one can only
imagine the frustration he felt
by going through the seasons'
first five events without a victory.
Arana Jr. took care of that at this
weekend's Lucas Oil Route 66
Nationals in Chicago, where he
won for the second-straight year.
Arana Jr. defeated Victory Rac-
ing's Matt Smith in a competitive
final round—6.91 to 6.95.
"This place [Route 66 Race-
way] is definitely one of my
favorites;" Arana Jr. said "I love
racing here. We had a good bike
today. In qualifying, it didn't want
to leave the starting line but
we made a change for Q4 that
worked. Actually, we didn't get
to run Q4 because of the rain,
but maybe that may have been a
blessing. The change we made
worked today and we went out
and made nice runs."
Arana Jr. had one of the
quickest bikes in the field on
race day, but he still had to rely
on riding ability to reach the final
round. Paired with White Alliga-
tor Suzuki's Jerry Savoie in the
second round, Arana Jr. used a
starting line holeshot to win with
a 6.91 to Savoie's quicker 6.89.
Following a win over UPI Perfor-
mance Buell's Chaz Kennedy in
the semi-final round, Arana got a
measure of revenge against his
old rival Smith.
"It has been a little frustrat-
ing this year but we knew we'd
eventually get it done," Arana
Jr. said. "I just hope this is the
start of something good. I'd like
to win many more. When you
come back to a track after a win
sometimes it's harder to win for
the second time. You feel extra
Hector Arana Jr. scores
first win of the season at
Route 66 Raceway.
