Harley Wins NHRA in Atlanta - Harley Forum

Buzz Kanter · #1 04-28-2008, 05:42 PM

HINES RIDES SCREAMIN’ EAGLE V-ROD TO NHRA WIN IN ATLANTA
A Victorious Weekend Earns Hines the Pro Stock Motorcycle Points Lead

COMMERCE, Ga. (April 27, 2008) – Screamin’ Eagle/Vance & Hines rider Andrew Hines won the Pro Stock Motorcycle eliminations aboard a Harley-Davidson V-Rod at the 28th Annual Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Southern Nationals at Atlanta Dragway. Hines set a new track record as top qualifier for the event, and defeated Chip Ellis in the final round of eliminations to take his 14th career victory and assume the Pro Stock Motorcycle season points lead.

“We used the three-week break since the last race to do a lot of dyno work and it really paid off for the Screamin’ Eagle/Vance & Hines team,” said Hines. “My V-Rod was making consistent power all weekend. Each run was perfect and we were really having fun at the track today.”

The three-time world champion took control of the class in Friday qualifying with run of 6.95 seconds that set a new track record, and backed that up with another 6.95 pass on Saturday to claim the top spot in eliminations for the 22nd time in his career.

On Sunday, Hines charged through the elimination rounds, beating Michael Phillips, Matt Guidera, and Craig Treble with runs under seven seconds. In the final, Hines had a tremendous .009-second reaction time on the lights and ran his quickest pass of the event with a 6.946 to beat Ellis, who ran 6.958 on the Schumacher Electric Suzuki.
“That light in the final was a little bit of an accident, I wanted to go in the teens,” said Hines. “I knew we would need a quick start to run with Chip but that was cutting it a little close.”
Eddie Krawiec rode the other Screamin’ Eagle/Vance & Hines V-Rod into the sixth qualifying spot with a 7.012 in the final Saturday qualifying round. Krawiec (0.33, 6.989) lost to Angelle Sampey (.015, 6.992) on reaction time in the first round of eliminations

The win by Hines and early exits of Guidera and Matt Smith, who went out to Sampey in round two, moves Hines past those riders and into the season points lead after three rounds in the 2008 NHRA POWERade Drag Racing Series. Hines has 289 points, Guidera is second with 264 points, followed by Smith with 251 and Chip Ellis with 248. Krawiec drops to sixth spot with 145 points. NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycles will race next at the O'Reilly NHRA Midwest Nationals presented by Castrol, May 2-4 at Gateway International Raceway in Madison, Ill.

hotrodsporty · #2 04-29-2008, 09:32 PM

It was a great race day all around. The light Drew cut was amazing, and great to see him beat such a great competator as chip ellis.

Also in Dragster former Suziki racer Antron Brown won his first top fuel race against Tony Schumacher. That was two looses in finals for Schumacher racing.

In funny car top fuel the final pitted father against daughter. Ashley Force won the race as her father John Force (14 time NHRA champ) smoked his tires off the line. This was Ashleys first race win, and if John would have won it would have been his 1000 Round win. 1000 round wins are you kidding me, guess thats why he is the best there ever was. Maybe he will get his 1000 next week on his birthday.

Buzz, you made my week when I saw this new addition to the form, hope others are as enthusiatic about NHRA as I am.

Thanks AIM keep up the great work.

JayDee · #3 04-30-2008, 09:38 AM

Harley drag racing is new to me. What's the deal with it?

I thought the Japanese superbikes dominated this sort of thing.

hotrodsporty · #4 04-30-2008, 10:15 PM

Anrew Hines now heads to St. Louis with a 25 point lead ahead of Matt Guidera, who broke the Las Vegas track record in a test session earlier this year with his S&S powered Buell.

hotrodsporty · #5 04-30-2008, 10:18 PM

JD, Harley has always been in drag racing, and they have been up and down on being competitive in the NHRA. The past few years they have done much better, but I think they dump most of the racing monies into the All Harley Drag Racing Ass. (AHDRA).

Every year NHRA makes consessions with weight on bikes depending on if the Suzi'z or the Harleys are repeatly breaking track records. But there is still great racing to be had.