INTERVIEW
NHRA PRO STOCK MOTORCYCLE CHAMPION ANDREW HINES
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made tremendous progress with
three final round appearances
on his new Victory Gunner.
"This was a long road; we had
struggled in the middle of the
year and that helps make this
championship even more spe-
cial," Hines said. "We stunk up
the joint for the first half of the
season but my team stuck togeth-
er and overcame everything that
was thrown at us. All of us had a
lot of stress going on. I think that
even our families could see that.
Back at our shop, we were bat-
tling to make horsepower and to
make sure that our V-Rods could
find the winner's circle again.
Eddie went on a bit of a tear at
midseason and that was such a
relief; just to know that we could
go the distance again. Luckily,
we finished the season strong
and were able to bring home
another championship."
In motorcycle drag racing
circles, Hines descends from
royalty. His father, Byron, is
the mechanical genius behind
the Vance & Hines empire and
a 2014 inductee into the AMA
Motorcycle Hall of Fame. Older
brother, Matt, raced for nearly
a decade and won three cham-
pionships and 30 races before
retiring to become a crew chief
for the Vance & Hines factory-
backed Harley V-Rod program.
Still just 32, Andrew appears to
be well on his way to blowing
away the NHRA record books.
He has now tied Dave Schultz's
record of five championships.
Hines also finished the season
with 42 wins, one more than
Sampey and just three behind
Schultz's class record of 45.
That's a record that he's likely to
break next season.
"I don't think about that stuff
too much," Hines said. "I just
try to take it year by year and
race by race. I mean it's awe-
some to have five champion-
ships and it's great that Eddie's
win in Pomona was the 75
th
for Harley-Davidson in NHRA.
I'm proud to be a part of that.
We're going to enjoy this cham-
pionship for a while but we
know that we also need to get
back to work. Everyone else
isn't going to take the winter off
so we can't either. We need to
spend the winter in our shop
getting ready for next season.
With Jerry and Karen Stoffer
winning a bunch of races we've
already seen how good the Su-
zuki combination is and it's only
going to get better. We've also
got Matt Smith, who made a lot
of progress with his Victory this
season. It's only going to get
tougher from here." CN
When Kraweic beat
Jerry Savoie in Las
Vegas, Hines could
breathe a little easier
going into the season
final in Pomona.
