KRAWIEC’S HARLEY-DAVIDSON IS AT THE TOP OF NORWALK QUALIFYING LADDER

Written by Tracy Renck, photo by Roger Richards    Sun, 2019-06-23 08:00

 

Through four qualifying sessions at the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals in Norwalk, Ohio, Eddie Krawiec had the best Pro Stock Motorcycle.

That narrative played out Saturday evening as Krawiec took the top qualifying spot with his 6.843-second elapsed time in 197.45 mph in Q4.

Krawiec was hooked up from the start to take his 46th career No. 1 qualifying spot and third this season. Krawiec also qualified No. 1 in Atlanta and Chicago this season. Krawiec came to Norwalk second in the points standings and he’s aiming to win his first race of the year at the track where he is the defending champ.

“I have a great motorcycle right now and we made a good clean run down Summit Motorsports Park,” Krawiec said. “The first run (Saturday) we kind of missed it on the setup; the track was a little tricky. We just had to work more towards what I’m going to consider is more of a race-day setup. I talked about that (Friday) and it is really important to have a good motorcycle on Saturday because then you kind of know what to expect Sunday. One of the things too is that (Sunday) the temperature is going to be up probably around 10, 12 degrees. It will for sure be interesting racing. Your tune-up is going to change. The track is going to change. Your whole setup is going to change. It’s nice to have a green hat (Saturday), but you want to have a yellow hat (Sunday).”

Krawiec and his teammate Andrew Hines on their Vance & Hines Harleys have been perennial powers in the Pro Stock class. Hines is first in the points standings and qualified third. Former world champion Angelle Sampey also is riding a Harley this season. She qualified No. 10.

“The interesting thing is we have three motorcycles that all want to be tuned differently,” Krawiec said. “There’s no such thing as having the same tune-up for each bike because it just doesn’t work like that. We would love to say all these mechanical parts work together. They are done on precision CNC machines that are exactly the same as one another and you would think they would want the same tune-up, well, they don’t. You have to learn the offsets of what each motorcycle likes on its own and tune to that. For us it is about giving each rider the proper clutch setup and tune-up to go down the dragstrip. That’s why we make all four runs to get the data. You can come here with all four bikes identical and guaranteed by the by the end of the weekend to make all four go fast you’re going to be going a different direction with each bike. It benefits us for sure having three separate cracks each session and when you look at it in theory, we have 12 runs or 16 runs of data depending how many qualifying sessions we have. It gives you an advantage going into race day.”

Krawiec meets Michael Ray in round one.

“The whole thing (Sunday) is really going to be chasing the track and the track conditions,” Krawiec said. “I know the NHRA Safety Safari is going to do the best job they can to give us a good, consistent track and I think I have the motorcycle to take advantage of that.”  

 

 

 
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