Thunder
Eagles Storm Vegas
Tom Bradford and the Hal's H-D/Hal's Performance Advantage
2003
AHDRA Pro Stock and Pro Gas Champions
AHDRA at The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway
Las Vegas, Nevada, October 18-19, 2003
Pro Stock Qualifying
- Round 1 1st Tom Bradford 7.692 et 162.24 mph
- Round 2 1st Tom Bradford 7.548 et 173.05 mph
- Round 3 1st Tom Bradford 7.452 et 175.39 mph
Late Saturday night
after a long day of qualifying, spirits were high at the Thunder
Eagle trailer. Tom Bradford's Pro Stock Buell was qualified
#1 at Las Vegas and had secured his third straight AHDRA Pro
Stock championship (Tom won the ADBA championship in '98 and
spent '99 and '00 on the NHRA circuit). With the Pro Gas championship
already secured for Bradford as well, new rider Jerry Chapman
(from the AMRA) qualified #2 in Pro Gas on the Pro Stock legal,
2000 Buell owned by Lee Coffey.
As crew chief Rob
Schopf wrenched on Bradford's bike, he bobbed his head along
with the music cranking out of the trailer (the liveliest
in the Vegas pit) and talked animatedly with the gathering
crowd. There was still work to be done by this perfectionist
organization, for though the bike was running good enough,
its performance was not up to their standards.
"The air is
real funny," Schopf said later. "We had Shane Tecklenburg
from Motec working with the fuel injection. We put some different
sensors on the bike and were on both sides of the fuel curve.
We were pushing the curve on leanness and I think we hurt
the motor. It didn't help that we stretched the chain."
Pro
Stock Eliminations
Round 1
Tom Bradford .496 7.582 et 168.41 mph (w)
George Farrell no show
Semifinal - Bradford's chain was damaged
on this pass
Tom Bradford .905 15.988 et 51.04 mph (w)
single
Bradford's stretched
chain was noticed in the water box after starting the bike
but before doing his burnout. Luckily, Tom had an earned bye
run and gingerly staged the bike without a burnout and nursed
it down the track. The round was won but damage was done.
"It broke the shift forks and we had to rebuild the transmission
for the final," said Schopf.
FINAL
- Tom Bradford .428 7.667 et 168.77 mph (w)
- Rick Maney .452 7.646 et 169.85 mph
Schopf lauded Tom's
riding and raved on about his holeshot win aboard the wounded
Buell. "My hand came off the shift button," Bradford
said about his final round pass. "I couldn't find the
button and the bike hit the rev limiter. I could hear him
(Maney) banging away over there and I was thinking 'OK baby,
grow some legs.' It was close. We couldn't tell who won. That
was one of the most fun drag races we've had in a long time."
Bradford raved
about Chapman's riding in Vegas. "You set the pace,"
Tom said to Jerry in the Vegas winners circle. "You won
by a holeshot (in the quarterfinals against Bob Grimes) so
I had to, too."
With the Pro Stock
bike running off song at Vegas, the team's stated goal of
running numbers to compare with the following weekend's NHRA
event at The Strip was not quite met. "Definitely, we
wanted to run .30s there," said Bradford. "If it
had been a .38 or a .39 that would have been OK. The best
we ran was a .45 and we're not quite sure why yet. But I'm
not kidding myself and I know a .45 won't cut it (at an NHRA
race)."
Ironically, former
Pro Stock champion Dirk Higgins's numbers were good enough
to handily win P/S at Vegas had his team not again entered
Pro Gas instead. "Dirk would have won, we had nothing
for him," said Schopf. "Jon Miller tuned the heck
out of the bike and Dirk really rode well."
Even bigger than
Tom's Vegas win and two championships, however, was his brand
new daughter born on the Thursday afternoon before the race.
Paige Madisyn Bradford joins brother Quintin and parents Tom
and Theresa. Paige weighs in 7lbs 5oz and sports a 20.5"
wheelbase.
"For the longest
time we knew it was gonna be right down to the wire,"
said proud father Tom. "The actual due date was right
between Rockingham and Vegas, and you don't know whether she's
gonna be early or late. You don't know what kind of arrangements
to make. We had everything taken out to the track but we thought
the equipment might have ended up sitting around out in Vegas
without a rider. I would not have gone.
"We went in
on the due date and the doctor said 'Would you like to just
go in on Thursday and make it happen?' They give you some
sort of medicine to start things happening but it takes time.
So Friday at 6 in the evening I jumped on a plane and headed
to Vegas.
"Theresa's
truly the champion this year. She carried this kid through
the toughest year of my career politically. To have the baby
and give me the clearing the next day to go off and race,
she's just a Super Woman."
Politics may play
a hand next season as well, as the AHDRA has shelved 60 degree
motors in Pro Stock. It's a move that Bradford supports, as
class participation was low this year. "At this point
in time we don't have a rock solid plan for next year,"
said Tom. "We're gonna be at AHDRA and selected NHRA
events. How we connect those dots is still up in the air.
We've always had a great relationship with our sponsors and
I know they'll be right there. They let us stand back and
make the right decisions."
The Thunder Eagle
team's major sponsor is Hal's, and industry heavy hitters
buzzed about Hal's approach to the motorcycle business at
the AHDRA banquet. "They just aren't a dealership,"
said Bradford. "They're a company that's also a Harley
dealership. They're very innovative."
Find out more about
Hal's at www.halspa.com
Tom thanked
sponsors Hal's Performance Advantage, Hal's Harley-Davidson/Buell,
Joker Machine, Vanson Leathers, The Carburetor Shop, T-N-S
Machining, CRD Inc., S&S Cycle, Gates Belts and Hoses,
Buell Motor Co., Mustang Shelly's Roadhouse, Red Line Oil,
MTI Coatings, Stitch-it-Embroidery, Accurate Automatic Parts,
and Wurth Products.
Find out more about
Bradford's team at www.thundereagleracing.com
Find out more about the AHDRA at www.ahdra.com
Images
for this press release may be obtained at
http://www.eatmyink.com/bradfordvegaspolito.html
http://www.eatmyink.com/thundereaglereportgraphic.html
The Thunder Eagle
Report is prepared by Tim Hailey, www.eatmyink.com
Photo of Tom Bradford's
Thunder Eagle Buell at Vegas by Matt Polito, www.dragbikephotos.com
