NHRA - Countdown to the Championship - Last year’s second-place finish has motivated points leader Hines

Andrew Hines
At this time last year, Screamin’ Eagle Harley rider Andrew Hines was mired in 10th place in the NHRA POWERade Pro Stock Motorcycle standings and was still looking for his first win of the season, a victory that would not come until the season’s fifth event in Chicago. Hines recovered from his slow start and eventually made a run at the POWERade world championship, but he came up short by six points when he red-lighted at the season-ending Pomona event.

Things are different for Hines this season. He’s the hottest rider in the class, winning back-to-back events in Atlanta and Madison to open a 56-point lead over defending champ Matt Smith. With last year’s painful lesson still fresh in his mind, Hines is refreshed, focused, and determined to turn the negative of 2007 into a positive.

“I’m definitely more motivated this year,” said Hines. “I don’t want to say that we expected to win the championship, but let’s just say that what happened last year in Pomona was a surprise. I can’t say that what happened last year was a good thing, but as a person, it kind of motivated me to change my program. Now, I watch my weight a little more closely. I was up to 166 pounds at the end of last season, and now I’m at 149. I’m comfortable at that weight because I did it the right way. I used to just go on a crash diet for three weeks, but this time I worked out and watched what I ate. I feel better, and I have a lot more energy. I didn’t sacrifice any strength, so now I can break bolts loose without any trouble.”

Hines has gotten plenty of practice turning wrenches lately as his father, Byron, has cut back on his hectic schedule, handing more responsibilities to Andrew, his brother, Matt, and the rest of the Screamin’ Eagle Vance & Hines team. Though he has always been an active team member at the team’s headquarters in Brownsburg, Ind., Hines has recently learned to operate a dynamometer.

With back-to-back wins in Atlanta and Madison, Hines is in the points lead in the NHRA POWERade Pro Stock Motorcycle standings.

“First off, a lot of people think that my dad is retiring, but that’s not the case,” said Hines. “He’s just in a position where he wants to have some fun. He and my mother [Janice] have started taking flying lessons, which is something they’ve wanted to do for a long time. They bought a plane, and they’re about to do their first solos. He still works as hard as he ever did, but he just spends fewer hours in the shop. He’s worked hard his whole life. He’s earned it.

“As for running the dyno, it's a whole different experience for me, but I’m having fun and learning a lot. It’s no different than when I was a kid watching Matt make hundreds of runs on his bike. I’ve watched my dad make thousands of dyno pulls. Still, it was pretty nerve-racking the first time I did it. Thankfully, we haven’t had any major problems. We broke a timing belt once, but it didn’t hurt the engine. I’ve probably made 60 to 70 pulls between Houston and Atlanta, and it’s really cool when you see performance gains.”

With a string of 6.8s in Madison, including a career-best 6.87, Hines’ Screamin’ Eagle V-Rod is arguably the most powerful bike in the class; however, he’s more proud of its improved reliability. So far in 2008, he has made 29 runs in competition, 22 of which have been in the sixes. His slowest run of the year is a 7.17 in Houston.

“When it comes to reliability, we’ve come a long way,” he said. “We still have a few gremlins like an occasional spun bearing or broken belt, but overall, I’d say that we can make it to the finish line about 95 percent of the time. We’ve gotten a lot of help from Harley-Davidson in that area, and that has made a big difference.”

After running a 6.84 during preseason testing, many expected Hines to steamroll the competition at the first few races. Though he opened the season with a runner-up in Gainesville and a semifinal finish in Houston, Hines still felt that something was amiss.

“Some people want to say that we were sandbagging, but the truth is that we had an electrical problem at the first two races, and we didn’t fix it until we got to Atlanta,” said Hines. “We changed a lot of things, so I really couldn’t say what the problem was, but the bike we had in Atlanta was much better than the one we had in Gainesville and Houston.”

With 16 consecutive six-second time slips tucked into his back pocket, Hines is arguably the hottest Pro racer on the NHRA tour, and he sees no reason why he can’t carry that momentum into the next Pro Stock Motorcycle event in Chicago in four weeks.

“If you look at our history, we seem to get better in the middle and the end of the year,” he said. “Hopefully, we can continue to do that. As good as our bike was in Madison, our 60-foot times were off a bit, and that’s something we’re going to work on before the next race. Right now, the team is happy, and we’re all working together well. No matter how you look at it, we’re already doing better than last year.”