O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Nationals - PHOTO HIGHLIGHTS
September 14-16
zMAX Dragway
Photos by Matt Polito
The Charlotte event marks the first race of the NHRA “Countdown”, the race to the coveted NHRA “Wally” Championship Trophy.
Eddie Krawiec had the quickest bike on Sunday but got beat on a holeshot by teammate Andrew Hines in the final it what was a fantastic race.
Scotty Pollacheck made it to round two but had a -.005 redlight against Krawiec
The NHRA PSM scene has been dominated by the 4Hs this year – the Harleys and the Hectors. The Harleys have been undefeated this year and while Hector and Hector Jr. have had the best chance of knocking the Harleys off, they have not been able to do it.
Matt Smith was the quickest bike outside the 4Hs. He qualified the Viper Buell 5th at 6.91 and went to round to where he lost to… an H.
Harley displayed their sweet new CVO Breakout and the even sweeter Harley girls - Crystal, Allison and Natalie - were all over it.
Michael Ray as Jesse Pinkman. “Yo Mr. White!”
Jackie Bryce and Aniko Dabasi of the Soverign/Star Racing team pose with mascot “Mo’ Horse Power”. Seems like Mo’ has been making the rounds on photo galleries on Facebook. Put DBC photo highlights on the list.
John Hall and Harley’s Kris Schoonover have fun with their Traxxas RC cars in the following qualifying.
Hector Arana was in the hunt until he broke in the semifinals against Andrew Hines.
Viper Motorcycle announced full sponsorship of Michael Ray and Matt Smith for the remainder of the 2012 season. Viper has been plans for NHRA drag racing, including building a Pro Stock Motorcycle engine for NHRA competition with Ilmor Engineering.
Dragbike.com's very own Paul Cavanaugh was on-site and looking quite, well, official.
As was announced at Indy, 2012 will be the last season of the Geico Sponsorship of Karen Stoffer. The Geico sponsorship was one of the longest and more lucrative in all of motorcycle drag racing and they were well represented for 12 years by Stoffer. According to Stat Guy LB, Stoffer has 5 wins in 14 final round appearances.
LE Tonglet had a rough outing for new sponsor ZLOOP. The former champ blew a trans on his first lap and kicked a rod out in the second. The team cobbled together a motor and LE had his best lap of the event (and got a holeshot) in round one against Eddie Krawiec.
With his Charlotte win Andrew Hines tied his brother Matt with 30 career NHRA national event victories.
www.nhra.com
About NHRA
Headquartered in Glendora, Calif., NHRA is the primary sanctioning body for the sport of drag racing in the United States. NHRA presents 23 national events featuring the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series, NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series and NHRA Pro Mod Drag Racing Series presented by ProCare Rx. NHRA provides competition opportunities for drivers of all levels in the NHRA Summit Racing Series and the NHRA Drags: Street Legal Style presented by AAA. NHRA also offers the Jr. Drag Racing League for youth ages 8 to 17. In addition, NHRA owns and operates five racing facilities: Atlanta Dragway in Georgia; Auto-Plus Raceway at Gainesville in Florida; National Trail Raceway in Ohio; Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis; and Auto Club Raceway at Pomona in Southern California. For more information, log on to NHRA.com, or visit the official NHRA pages on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
