The bond between Harley-Davidson, one of the world’s legendary motorcycles, and Rockingham Dragway, one of America’s legendary racetracks, will grow even stronger next season when the track plays host to a second event in the All-Harley Drag Racing Association national series.

Track owner Steve Earwood announced Thursday that beginning with the 2011 season, The Rock will play host to the AHDRA’s Nitro Harley Spring Nationals, a companion event to the season-ending Screamin’ Eagle Performance Parts Jim McClure Nitro Nationals.

“This is Harley country,” Earwood said, “and we’re excited that next year, for the first time, we’re going to be able to showcase 230 mile-an-hour Top Fuel Harleys in both the spring and the fall.  The AHDRA series has become one of the most exciting in all of drag racing, attracting riders from as far away as Japan, and we’re doubly excited to be a part of it.”

      
The bond between Harley-Davidson, one of the world’s legendary motorcycles, and Rockingham Dragway, one of America’s legendary racetracks, will grow even stronger next season when the track plays host to a second event in the All-Harley Drag Racing Association national series.

Track owner Steve Earwood announced Thursday that beginning with the 2011 season, The Rock will play host to the AHDRA’s Nitro Harley Spring Nationals, a companion event to the season-ending Screamin’ Eagle Performance Parts Jim McClure Nitro Nationals.

“This is Harley country,” Earwood said, “and we’re excited that next year, for the first time, we’re going to be able to showcase 230 mile-an-hour Top Fuel Harleys in both the spring and the fall.  The AHDRA series has become one of the most exciting in all of drag racing, attracting riders from as far away as Japan, and we’re doubly excited to be a part of it.”

The new event, featuring the same Top Fuel and Pro Fuel Harley-Davidson hybrids that have transformed the fall race into a “must see” for 19 seasons, will be contested for the first time on April 29-May 1, 2011 as the third race in a series that crowns world champions in six pro and eight sportsman categories.

Likely among those most excited about the new event are native North Carolinians Ray Price, a member of the Harley-Davidson Hall of Fame and owner of the national record-holding Top Fuel Harley ridden by Joey Sternotti, and Jay Turner, the  reigning AHDRA Top Fuel Champion and son of former Piedmont Dragway owner Jim Turner.

Both have strong ties to The Rock.

Turner won an IHRA race at Rockingham in 2000 en route to the IHRA Nitro Harley world championship.  In the AHDRA series, he doubled-up at the Screamin’ Eagle Finals in 2005, winning in both Top Fuel and Pro Fuel.  His victory this year was his third Rockingham Top Fuel win in the last six years.

Before retiring as a competitive rider at age 65, Price was runner-up at both of the IHRA Nitro Harley events at The Rock in 2002 en route to a third place finish in national points.  The proprietor of Ray Price Harley-Davidson in Raleigh, he celebrated in the Rockingham winners’ circle at the 2009 Screamin’ Eagle Finals as owner of the Top Fuel bike ridden by Sternotti.

 The addition of a second AHDRA event can only enhance the track’s reputation as one of the premier motorcycle drag racing facilities in the nation.  It also produces, in association with Maryland International Raceway, one of the country’s most successful independent motorcycle series, the Mickey Thompson Performance Tires MiRock Superbike Series composed of four races at each track.

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