General Posts

  Harley-Davidson® Screamin’ Eagle®/Vance & Hines rider Ed Krawiec leads the Pro Stock Motorcycle points standings after advancing to the semi-final round of eliminations at the AAA Texas NHRA Fall Nationals at the Texas Motorplex, the second event in the six-race Full Throttle Countdown to the Championship playoffs. Krawiec has an 11-point lead over his teammate, Andrew Hines, who also advanced to the semi-finals at theTexas event. Michael Ray defeated Karen Stoffer in the final, the first of the season not to feature at least one of the Harley-Davidson Screamin’ Eagle riders, as the team’s winning streak came to end after 13 consecutive NHRA events dating back to 2011. “It’s been almost a calendar year since there wasn’t a Harley-Davidson® V-Rod®  rider on the winner’s podium,” said Hines. “We can look back on this streak with pride. We may never do it again, but it’s a string of success we will always remember.” Krawiec (6.887 seconds) and Hines (6.892 seconds), racing Harley-Davidson® V-Rod® motorcycles finished in dazzling metalflake Hard Candy paint, qualified third and fourth, respectively, for the event. Lucas Oil Buell rider Hector Arana Jr. paced all qualifiers with an Elapsed Time of 6.852 seconds. Hines defeated the Steve Johnson Suzuki and MB Precision/LAT Racing Oil Buell rider Mike Berry in the first two rounds of Sunday eliminations before losing to Ray on the Viper Motorcycle Company Buell in the third round. Krawiec got wins over PiranaZ Racing Buell rider Shawn Gann and ZLOOP Suzuki rider LE Tonglet in the first two rounds, and then lost to Geico Suzuki rider Stoffer on a holeshot in the third round. “Both of our V-Rods really fell off in performance between the second and third rounds,” said Krawiec. “We’ve had that happen at this track in the past, as the temperature goes up and the track surface starts to

  KLR Group/Spyke’s Harley-Davidson rider Michael Barnes won his second AMA Pro Vance & Hines XR1200 series race of the season Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway, a day after his teammate Kyle Wyman’s season come to a disappointing end after a qualifying crash.   Barnes battled polesitter Tyler O’Hara (Bartels’ H-D/Scrubblade) and Travis Wyman (Harv’s Harley-Davidson), who rounded out the podium spots, along with Suburban Motors H-D’s Benjamin Carlson and MOB Racing’s Jake Holden throughout the 11-lap contest. After leading the third and fourth laps of the race, Barnes fell back to third behind O’Hara and Wyman, who traded the lead for the next several laps. But on lap ten, Barnes picked off Wyman for second, setting up a decisive move for the lead and eventual win on the final lap, when he passed O’Hara on the back straight. With yellow flags out for a crashed rider on the last lap, Barnes was able to hold that lead through the final few corners and fend off O’Hara’s late draft-pass attempt at the start/finish line by 0.132 second. “It’s been a real emotional rollercoaster weekend with Kyle getting hurt yesterday,” Barnes said. “It affected the whole team but it made us dig that much deeper, and I know Travis was digging deeper for his brother out there too. He was riding hard. It was hard to out-brake him, but I needed to get by Travis in order to get by Tyler. I dug deep for that one.” On Saturday, XR Showdown contender Kyle Wyman (KLR Group/ Spyke’s Harley-Davidson) high-sided in damp track conditions during qualifying and was air-lifted to a local hospital for observation. Wyman was released later that evening and returned to the track to root for his teammate Barnes on Sunday, but decided to call an end to his season to