ARANA JR. RETURNS TO CHARLOTTE MINUS MAJOR SPONSOR

by Tracy Renck    Sat, 2021-05-15 11:00

 

 

There’s been one Pro Stock Motorcycle racer noticeably absent at the past two NHRA Camping World Drag Racing Series events in Las Vegas and Atlanta – veteran Pro Stock Motorcycle pilot Hector Arana Jr.

Arana Jr. is back competing at the NGK NTK NHRA Four-Wide Nationals at zMax Dragway in Charlotte, N.C., this weekend.

“Lucas Oil is no longer our primary sponsor,” Arana Jr. said in an interview with CompetitionPlus.com. “They are still helping, and we are grateful for their support.”

“Right now, we are on our own budget. We are open to any sponsors. We are looking for sponsors and if there is somebody interested in renting, we have three other bikes available for rent. They are all EBR bikes. We are looking for funding for this year and beyond.”

In 2017 at the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis, Arana Jr. debuted the new Erik Buell Racing 1190RX body style Buell.

“The EBR 1190RX body that everybody is running (now) is a body that was developed by Arana Racing,” Hector Jr. said. “Everybody who has gone 200 mph, except Angelle (Sampey, who was riding a Suzuki) and Eddie (Krawiec, on a Harley-Davidson) has gone 200 mph because of our Arana Racing body. Andrew Hines was not able to go 200 mph until he got our body. Matt Smith could not go 200 until he got our body. That performance is from our hard work and dedication and design. Wind tunnel testing, CNC development, computer engineering and everything to have a body to be able to perform and be stable and safe on the track.

“I want people to know that we are proud of what we developed, and all the accomplishments and it is still for sale through us, and we will be competitive with the other manufacturers. We prefer that they come to us instead of going through somebody who literally stole something.”

Hector Sr. is upset about other riders competing with EBR 1190RX bodies that were not bought from him.

“When people bought an EBR (1190RX) body from me, I had them sign a contract that they could not duplicate or reproduce the body in any way,” Arana Sr. said. “A competitor we sold the body to has violated the contract that we had them sign and they had our body copied without our permission, and they are selling it at our expense. It is a shame that a racer can buy something that is being pirated when all the hard work and everything was done by the Arana family and surprisingly NHRA approved those bodies.”

Arana Sr. won his lone NHRA PSM world championship in 2009. Hector Jr.’s career-best finish in the points was second in 2011, his rookie year.

Arana Sr. has competed in 326 NHRA national events and has seven national event wins with 16 runner-up performances. Arana Jr. is competing in his 154th career Pro Stock Motorcycle national event this weekend. He has 15 career wins, and 12 runner-up finishes and 22 No. 1 qualifying spots.

“When I got hurt really bad in a Pro Stock Motorcycle accident in 1989, my main thing was safety and of course performance and we did it right,” Arana Sr. said. “It took us three years to develop the 1190RX body and we debuted it in 2017. How can honesty be there? Someone’s hard work and money and dedication is put into something and then someone else takes it. I’m concerned about the safety of the riders with the copied bodies because we don’t know what the quality is like on those bodies.”

Arana Jr. made his 2021 season debut at the Gatornationals, March 11-14. He qualified No. 7 and upended Angie Smith in round one before falling in the second round to reigning world champion Matt Smith, Angie’s husband.

Arana Jr. is hungrier than ever this weekend for the Four-Wide Nationals.

“We want to kick some a**,” Arana Jr. said. “We are out here for the love and the passion of racing. We had so much hard work and so many things in the pipeline for development, we have two brand new Gen2 S&S engines that were in the process of being developed and now they are kind of on hold. Those motors have a lot of promise and we believe they will be even faster if we can get the funding to continue with that. We had so many things in development, in the pipeline, to just give up. We can’t give up. This what we love and this what we have done. This our livelihood and we would like to be able to bring on another partner so we can continue.”

After Charlotte, Arana Jr. said his family-run team will decide week-by-week what events it will go to.

“If somebody wants to contact us to help us go to another race, we will need just a little bit of heads-up just to make sure we are ready,” Arana Jr. said. “We continue to work on stuff, we haven’t stopped our development, it just has slowed down a little bit. Any little thing would help, and we would be appreciative if any partner wants to come on board.”

 

 

 

 

 
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