NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

Gaige Herrera’s amazing 2023 starting winning streak finally ended — as all winning streaks are wont to do — on a red-light start against Steve Johnson in the final round of the NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals.

Until that streak was snapped, Herrera, aboard the Mission Foods/Vance & Hines Suzuki Hayabusa, had turned on 18 straight win lights, including four in winning Mission #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge events in Chicago and Bristol.

Even discounting his four Challenge win lights, it’s the longest points-counting season-opening streak in 27 years, since Jim Yates opened the 1996 Pro Stock season with 14 straight round-wins.

Of the 13 side-by-side races in those all-inclusive 18 rounds (discounting opponent breakage), Herrera’s average margin of victory was a staggering .012-second — more than a tenth on average ahead of his opponents. Not content with just having the quickest motorcycle — he was the low qualifier at all four national events — Herrera also averaged a .026 reaction time in the 16 races where he and his opponent both turned on the green.

Here's a race-by-race look at Herrera’s stunning season launch, including opponent, reaction times, e.t.s and speeds, and margins of victory:

Before he joined the Vance & Hines juggernaut over the winter, Herrera had competed in just six national events, all last season starting at the Dodge Power Brokers NHRA U.S. Nationals, and he failed to win a round at any of them. His best starting spot was 10th at the NHRA Finals, and he also failed to qualify twice.

That things had turned massively for him was apparent in preseason testing when he cracked off some 6.60s at more than 200 mph after reaching a best of just 6.871, 193.85 in 2022.

Herrera qualified No. 1 with a 6.685 — six-hundredths better than No. 2 Steve Johnson and the third-quickest pass in Pro Stock Motorcycle history — at 203.49, the seventh fastest speed in class annals.

He only got left on once in four rounds, with No. 16 qualifier Ron Tornow knowing he needed to leave on him in round one, and ran three 6.70s and a 6.74 paving his way to his first win, capped with an easy final-round win over Angie Smith, who had closed the 2022 season with a win at the 2022 Finals.

After the bikes sat out the Phoenix, Pomona, and Las Vegas races, Herrera’s first attempt at four-wide racing went smashingly well when the two-wheelers reported for duty at zMAX Dragway as he won all four quads, including, of course, the final. He again qualified No. 1, his 6.735 leading teammate Eddie Krawiec by exactly three-hundredths of a second.

In round one, he was first off the line (discounting Oehler’s redlight) and won handily over second-place Kelly Clontz and counted on his Andrew Hines-brewed power to overcome a couple of .00 lights thrown at him in the semifinals to again win his quad. He was first out of the gate again in the final and pulled away at every increment to collect win No. 2 and run his unbeaten streak to 7-0.

The Pro Stock Motorcycle crowd finally got their first chance at the Mission #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge dollars and bonus points at Route 66 Raceway during qualifying for the Gerber Collision & Glass Route 66 NHRA Nationals.

The rematches were based on the NHRA Gatornationals, and Herrera easily repeated his semifinal Gainesville win over Jianna Evaristo, as she had to lift early and watched him light up the scoreboards with a 6.677, the second-quickest pass in class history. In the final, Herrera ran his unbeaten streak to nine rounds when his sizzling 6.672 bettered his previous pass and easily beat Chase Van Sant, who had knocked off Gainesville runner-up Angie Smith in the opening round of the Challenge. Herrera's pass also earned him his third straight No. 1 qualifying berth.

Herrera made it a double-up weekend at the race closest to his home by adding four more win lights Sunday at Route 66 Raceway. You can tell that everyone knew they needed their starting-line “A” game against him as more people — including teammate Eddie Krawiec — had to go .00 on the Tree to try to beat him, but he still had the power to win easily by about six-hundredths. The final-round win over Chip Ellis boosted his winning streak to 13 rounds, 11 of which counted for points.
 

The semifinal rematch from the Gerber Collision & Glass Route 66 NHRA Nationals went according to form again for Herrera in the opening round of the Mission Challenge at Bristol Dragway during NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals qualifying as he again victimized his Vance & Hines teammate Eddie Krawiec, who had to sit up early in his run. Herrera was leaving no doubts in the final as he added more cash and more Countdown to the Championship bonus points to his account by drilling on and then outrunning Hector Arana Jr. in the Challenge final to extend his unbeaten string to 15 rounds.

Herrera was again the No. 1 qualifier for the national event.

Herrera’s 6.861 was low e.t. of the round one by a ton (next best: 6.864 by Krawiec) and his second-round 6.805 was miles ahead of Steve Johnson’s next-best winning run of 6.899, and his semifinal 6.845 was almost a half-tenth quicker than Johnson’s 6.894 in beating Hector Arana Jr.

Comparing Herrera’s raceday best of 6.805 to Johnson’s best of 6.880, it seemed like Herrera would easily add his 19th straight win, but, like a bowler going for that perfect 300 game, Johnson was that 7 pin that just wouldn’t lie down as Herrera, seemingly without need to do so, pushed the Tree too hard and fouled.

“I was cutting great lights all day but unfortunately rolled in a little too deep and got the red-light,” Herrera said. “In a strange way, losing takes a little pressure off my shoulders because now everyone’s not looking at me like I’m going to win them all. I’m still disappointed in myself for going red. That’s one way I hate to lose. But we’ll regroup and head to Norwalk looking to come back strong.”

Crew chief Andrew Hines was philosophical about the loss and confident that rather than be taken as a setback, this round is an opportunity for rider reflection and improvement.

“We got a Mission #2Fast2Tasty win and a runner-up finish this weekend. That’s a result any team would be happy to take," said Hines. "I said early in the season that Gaige would eventually find a flaw in his riding that he would learn from, and he now knows what that feels like. He started off this weekend on a track he’d never been on, and that’s bumpy. Gaige had some riding and shifting issues in qualifying. He said, ‘I’m never doing that again.’ The red-light is another one of those moments he can learn from, and that will make him a better rider. It’s not anything to hang his head down about. It’s part of racing.”