Hines Motors to Title -- Barely
The way it happened wasn’t pretty, but a 12th qualifying position Saturday was good enough to make Andrew Hines the first Harley-Davidson rider to win the National Hot Rod Assn. pro stock bike championship.
Hines, 21, also became the youngest person to win an NHRA professional category in any class. His brother Matt, who was 25 when he rode a Suzuki to the same championship in 1997, had been the youngest. Their father, Byron, was crew chief on the winning Harley, the first American-made motorcycle to claim the title.
In Hines’ morning run of the 40th Auto Club Finals at Pomona Fairplex, the chain broke on his Screamin’ Eagle V-Rod about halfway through the quarter-mile run, ripping pieces off the left side of the bike, damaging the carbon fiber body and hammering at Hines’ leathers before he could stop.
The Vance and Hines crew cannibalized parts of a show bike that Harley officials had on display and after two hours of replacing broken equipment with the help of duct tape, Hines rolled the orange and gray bike onto the starting line. More of it was from the show bike, a 2002 model, than from the V-Rod he arrived with.
He was 15th at the time in a 16-bike field, but no rider was left who could bump him from today’s eliminations -- or prevent him from winning the $50,000 season-long prize.
“When Matt told me I was already in the field, all I wanted was to just get it down the track,” said a relieved younger brother. “This has been a bad week for us. We blew two engines, had another one maybe torn up and hadn’t made a full pass in three days.”
The speed of 185.23 mph and time of 7.184 seconds were among his slowest of the season, during which he won three of 14 races with a round record of 31-11.
“All of the people from Harley-Davidson were here and I really felt the pressure, but I had so much help,” he said. “Even some of my competitors came in to help piece together the bike so I could run. All year long they pushed me to become better, and they were there today to help out.”
Harley’s first appearance in an NHRA final was in 1980 when Ed Ryan lost to Terry Vance -- a co-owner of Hines’ bike -- at the Gatornationals. It would be 24 years before reaching the winner’s circle.
In March, in the season’s opener at Gainesville, Fla., Hines became the first Harley rider to win an individual national event in 7.09 seconds at 189.43 mph. Later, at Englishtown, N.J., he set an NHRA record of 7.016 seconds.
Hines’ teammate, GT Tonglet, set a track record of 194.66 mph and curiously will meet Hines in today’s first round. Chip Ellis, on a Buell, was fast qualifier at 7.024 seconds, fourth fastest in NHRA history and also a track record.
Champions in the other three pro categories -- Tony Schumacher in top fuel, John Force in funny car and Greg Anderson in pro stock -- advanced easily into today’s finals.
