Cycle News

VOL. 50 ISSUE 26 JULY 2, 2013 here that I'd either be red or perfect and I was solid on the tree all weekend." Surprisingly, Ray was only 10th-quickest in qualifying with a 6.988, well behind Smith's polesitting time of 6.908, but on race day, he was as strong as anyone else in the field with runs of 6.94, 6.95 and 6.97 in his wins over John Hall, teammate Scotty Pollacheck, and Lucas Oil Buell's Hector Arana Sr. "I had an awesome bike, but we struggled a little in qualifying," said Ray. "We hurt an engine and got behind the eight-ball. To be honest, I'd prefer to race that way. Rather than being the numberone qualifier I'd rather have everyone say, 'Where did he come from?' Before the final, George [Bryce, crew chief] told me to just do the exact same thing I'd been doing and there was no way I could lose. I was .008 on the P75 Briefly... Viper Motorcycle Co. Buell's Matt Smith dropped a bomb in qualifying when he rode to a 6.908 in the final session to seat the top spot away from Scotty Pollacheck. According to Smith, he's been capable of that sort of performance all year, but has only recently begun to realize his potential. "We've had top speed on every run, but we needed the short times to go with it," Smith said. "This track is so good that we were bogging the bike, but I made a lot of changes to both my bike and [wife] Angie's bike for the last run and we ended up one and two for that session. This track has a lot of teeth and you need to get after it. You need to make a lot of changes like gear and fuel to take advantage of it." Veteran crew chief Gary Stoffer, who has been on the sidelines for much of this season while his wife, Karen, continues to search for funding, made an appearance at Route 66 Raceway as a consultant and helper to Wes Wells. Earlier this year, Stoffer worked with Katie Sullivan and has also made several trips to Europe to help racers in the FIM Drag Racing Series. "I've been staying busy, but it's not exactly the same as being out here for every race," Stoffer said. "I'm helping Wes this weekend, but we didn't get to make a run yesterday because we had an electrical problem. We need to do some re-wiring on that bike but it has some good stuff. Wes has all the latest Vance & Hines stuff so he should be competitive." Stoffer also noted that he would be helping Sullivan during the upcom- ing races in Denver and that Karen Stoffer would return for Sonoma and the U.S. Nationals in Indy. "Sonoma is our home race so we're going to run there and we have a shop in Indy so we can run both races for not a lot of money," said Stoffer. "Karen is anxious to get back on the bike and I'm anxious to have her back out here. We've got a few sponsor things in the works so hopefully something happens soon. The bike is ready to go so either way we're going to run those two events." When the 2013 rules package was announced and the Harley V-Rods were limited to a two-valve engine combination, most figured it would take the Vance & Hines team a while to adjust, but not many figured they would continue to struggle nearly halfway through the season. Riders Andrew Hines and Eddie Krawiec had another tough outing in Joliet as they qualified 15th and 16th, respectively, and were both knocked out in the first round of eliminations. "These are not the same bikes we brought to the last two races; not even close," said Hines. "When your dyno tells you that you've got something better, you believe it, but on the racetrack we're finding that's not the case. We went back to what we know. We went back to pretty much the same combination we ran earlier this year in Gainesville and Houston, but what I have in my bike right now has never been on the track or on the dyno. We just have to work harder. It's as simple as that." There were 19 bikes fighting for 16 continued on next page

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