The weather at Reading, Pa., was startlingly hot this entire weekend, and Pro Stock Motorcycle racer Eddie Krawiec was equally sizzling.

But that wasn’t startling at all.

His final-round victory Sunday over L.E. Tonglet at the NHRA Dodge Nationals was his third in a row, second in the Countdown to the Championship, second straight at Maple Grove Raceway, and fifth in all at this venue. That he heads with the rest of the Mello Yello Drag Racing Series tour to this coming weekend’s race at Gateway Motorsports Park still as the points leader is no surprise at all.

Krawiec is on a run characteristic of his Vance & Hines Screamin’ Eagle Harley-Davidson team that has won at Reading 10 times in the past 21 years, including seven of the past nine.

“That’s a pretty good stat. That’s an awesome deal,” he said after ran his record in eliminations to 29-7 and earned his 29th Wally statue. “Reading has treated me well over the years. To make this my 41st win is something special.”

The magic likely lies not in the racetrack itself but in his team’s recent chassis changes.

“Ever since we’ve switched back and gone to Plan B, changing our chassis and going back to last year’s rendition of it, it’s been huge for me. It’s been huge for our whole team, right at the right time,” Krawiec said. “There’s no better time to hit your stride than rolling into the Countdown.”

He said, “We didn’t do as good as we thought we were going to off the truck here. Usually we’re a very strong team. We ran well, but going into that fourth [qualifying] session, we were struggling to get hold of the track all day on Saturday. The track was actually really good – we were just missing it.”

Krawiec said he was bummed that qualifying didn’t go as planned, for he found himself having to race teammate Andrew Hines in the seconds round: “When you’re trying to race for a championship, it’s the one thing you don’t want to do. But my guys got it all together today.”

He said Hines “jumped on the tune-up side of my motorcycle” after dropping out and crew chief Matt Hines concentrated on the clutch. “And when I have dedication of those two guys and they’re focusing on each end of our package,” he said, “I believe we become unstoppable.”

In the final round, Krawiec won on his Street Rod in 6.852 seconds at 196.70 mph on the quarter-mile, while Tonglet encountered some sort of mechanical problem and clocked a disappointing 17.593-second elapsed time at 31.71-mph coast on the Nitro Fish Suzuki.

Krawiec, a three-time series champion, started the day from the fourth position and beat Kelly Clontz,  Hines, and top qualifier Scotty Pollacheck on his way to his sixth final-round appearance of the year.

Scoring back-to-back victories here, he said, was a credit to the NHRA and the Maple Grove Raceway track-prep staff. An he would be a qualified judge of that quality. He spent many years as the dragstrip manager at Englishtown’s Old Bridge Township Raceway Park “next door” in New Jersey before the Vance & Hines organization hired him.

“NHRA, honestly, has done a phenomenal job on the dragstrip. A lot of that goes back to the track and everything they do weeks before we even race. To be able to have great racing surfaces is a good thing, too, for all of us in the Countdown,” he said. “I have  a little bit of history in track prep. They do an awesome job here, and it’s fun to come here and run fast.”   

As the Mello Yello Drag Racing Series completes a stretch of three races in three weeks this coming weekend at Gateway Motorsports park near St. Louis, Krawiec owns a 71-point cushion between himslf and No. 2-ranked Tonglet, who started Sunday from the No. 7 slot and eliminated Angie Smith, team owner/teammate Jerry Savoie, and Hector Arana Jr. as he sought his 16th career victory.

Krawiec joined Brittany Force (Top Fuel), Ron Capps (Funny Car), and Bo Butner (Pro Stock) in the winners circle.