The debut season for Gaige Herrera with the powerhouse team Vance & Hines has been nothing short of fantastic.

Herrera won the first three events on his Suzuki in Gainesville, Fla., Charlotte, N.C., and Chicago before losing in the final round in Bristol, Tenn. He was then tripped up in the second round in Norwalk, Ohio, and
rebounded by winning in Denver on July 16.

Herrera’s trend of success has carried over to the Flav-R-Pac NHRA Northwest Nationals at Pacific Raceway in Seattle Saturday.

Herrera claimed the No. 1 spot in qualifying with his 6.767-second elapsed time at 198.09 mph and he also won the Mission #2Fasty2Tasty event, his third of the season.

Herrera’s lap came in Q1 Friday is his sixth No. 1 qualifier of the season. The list consists of Gainesville, Charlotte, Chicago, Bristol, Norwalk, and Seattle.

“I feel like we're back in the groove that we had before Bristol and so to be able to come out here and get the third Mission win for us, the whole team, and not only that, but Mission's a big sponsor for us,” Herrera said. “So, to
be able to support them as much as they support us, it's awesome. And not only that, to be No. 1 qualifier and Eddie's (Krawiec, his teammate) No. 2. So, it's an awesome start here at Seattle for Vance & Hines.

“We had an awesome front half (in the semifinals in the Mission race). I went to put it in sixth gear, and I pushed the button four times, and it just wouldn't go. So, I basically just pulled the clutch in and tucked as much as I could and prayed pretty much. Luckily, I had a little bit enough over Chase (Van Sant) to still get the win, so that was definitely a lucky round for me.”

Herrera has an incredible 19-2 elimination round record this season.

“No, it was pretty much, we just replaced what was broken, so it's still pretty much the same transmission,” Herrera said. “That's the nice thing about the new billet cases, it's basically like the stock cars now. It's easy to change, it
pulls out like (a) cassette. You could change it without splitting the cases, pulling the motor out. But no, overall, I didn't have any concern at all. We double checked, triple checked everything, so everything was looking good, so we had all the confidence going into the final (against Angie Smith).”

Herrera praised his team for fixing his Suzuki and having it ready to go in the finals. He clocked a 6.794-second time to edge Smith’s 6.806-second effort to win the #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge.

"I mean, that all that goes back to credit for the whole team,” Herrera said. “Between Eddie, Andrew, Jay, Scott, and Ray, they really know their stuff. They've been doing this for many years and as soon as they pulled it apart,
Andrew looked at it and found exactly what was wrong with it. So that right there gives me all the confidence in the world as a rider, as far as I'm able to find it right away and know how to fix it. Like I said, I had all the confidence in them and my machine and so I went up there with no doubt at all.”

Krawiec’s Suzuki struggled  Saturday, but Herrera said it wasn’t cause for alarm.

“Actually Eddie, he's trying new things,” Herrera said. “Obviously between me and him we have a little bit different body weight, different body motion on the bike. He's trying to make his bike act like mine, but it's got to be
different for the way he moves his body and so on and so forth. So that was, he changed the whole clutch set up. So that was just a trial and error, and he didn't like it, so he went back to his old setup for that round and tried
stepping on it a little bit and the track was a little hotter, so it spun a little. Basically, Ed is out trying new things obviously, so we can go one and two.” Herrera knows the track conditions – especially early in eliminations – will be
quite different on Sunday morning.

“The way Andrew looks at it, the tracks can be tighter, be cooler and everything else,” Herrera said. “He feels like we can go faster but we are going to go out there and just try to go A to B. That's the main thing on race
day is you want to be consistent, and you don't want to waste runs by trying stuff or you don't really want to shoot yourself in the foot. So, we're going to go up there tight, try to go A to B and my biggest thing is I got to be
consistent on the bike as far as the tree. I feel I'm very confident going into (Sunday).”