Andrew Hines was the only provisional low qualifier at the O’Reilly NHRA Midwest Nationals in St. Louis.

Rains which fell following the Pro Stock Motorcycle session forced NHRA officials to cancel the remainder of Friday qualifications.

Hines was surprised that any qualifying took place on a day hampered by repeated rain delays.

“All of our guys back in the pits have iPhones and they were pulling up the radar shots … they were saying it was going to get rained out,” Hines said. “Looking at the radar I didn’t think we would (be able to qualify).”

Andrew Hines was the only provisional low qualifier at the O’Reilly NHRA Midwest Nationals in St. Louis.

Rains which fell following the Pro Stock Motorcycle session forced NHRA officials to cancel the remainder of Friday qualifications.

Hines was surprised that any qualifying took place on a day hampered by repeated rain delays.

“All of our guys back in the pits have iPhones and they were pulling up the radar shots … they were saying it was going to get rained out,” Hines said. “Looking at the radar I didn’t think we would (be able to qualify).”

Hines laid down a 6.920 second run at 189.73 miles per hour to beat out former world champion Matt Smith, who was in the opposite lane of the Harley-Davidson rider. Smith ran a 6.965.

Many of the race teams experienced a lazy day but the same could not be said for Hines. The team encountered problems during the pre-run warm up which pressed the team into action for much of the morning.

“The long wait actually worked in our favor because we had to pull my V-Rod apart three times before we got to run,” Hines explained. “We fired it up about 10 AM and the engine was huffing a lot of smoke out of the front cylinder. We pulled the engine apart and everything seemed to look okay. We put it back together and it was still huffing smoke. We pulled the front cylinder head off and changed a few valve guide seals; they were leaking pretty badly. We got it back together and it was nothing major.”

The team finished their thrash at 1:55, five minutes prior to the original 2 PM qualifying start time.

“The rain actually allowed us to relax and have some lunch,” Hines added. “It was good to get the first run out of the way because that’s the one that always seems to stress us the most. We always want to get out there as soon as we can and lay down a number. Going to number one spot makes it only better.” 

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