Andrew Hines delivered perfection when it was needed most.

Hines, who pilots the Screamin’ Eagle Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson, cut a perfect light to beat Jerry Savoie on a holeshot to capture the title at the Lucas Oil Nationals Sunday in Brainerd, Minn.

Hines clocked a 6.866-second elapsed time at 194.94 mph to defeat Savoie’s quicker 6.863-second time at 194.88 mph. The difference was Hines’ .000 reaction time compared to Savoie’s .069 reaction time.

“I don’t know if I would say comfortable (coming into race day),” said Hines, who qualified No. 2. “I was definitely a little bit nervous because we came here with the intentions of preparing for the Countdown and we put brand new tires on the bikes, which in hindsight turned out to be a very bad decision because the track was so good here all weekend long. We definitely did not need a new tire. We were battling with the tune-up on Friday and the bikes wouldn’t put the mph up on the scoreboard and that’s partly due to the new tire, but mostly due to being off.”

This is Hines fourth win of the season as he also has victories at Charlotte (April 24), Chicago (July 10), and Denver (July 24). He also has two runner-up finishes at Norwalk, Ohio (June 26), and Sonoma, Calif. (July 31).

Hines, who has won PSM world championships in 2004-2006, and 2014-15, now has 46 career wins, the most all-time in NHRA’s Pro Stock Motorcycle class. Hines now also has three wins at Brainerd (2007, 2010 and 2016). Antron Brown is the career leader in Pro Stock Motorcycle wins at Brainerd with four (2000, 2001, 2003, 2006).

Hines beat Steve Johnson, Cory Reed, Hector Arana Jr., and then Savoie to snare the Wally.

“We just pecked away at it all weekend and we got Eddie’s bike to run some good speed (195.16) in Q4 and just kind of played off that for (Sunday),” Hine said. “First round looked like we were OK and then throughout the second round and third round, it was a struggle. Jerry and Angelle (Sampey) were leading the class by far and we just took our chance at it in the final round. We put an old tire back on, so it had a little rolling resistance and wasn’t quite as sticky. The 60 foot was little bit better in the final than it did in the semi and it still went nice and straight. That’s the big thing about changing tires, you never quite know on a motorcycle which way it is going to make you go. It still went nice and straight down the track and I tucked it as hard as I could and I knew when I threw the clutch away I had a little bit of an advantage. I didn’t want to be triple (.000) by any means, but I was pressing it because I knew I needed any advantage I could get on Jerry because he had been on kill all day long and we knew what he was capable of, I just decided to go out there and keep my head clear and that was pretty easy to do with my team making sure we had flawless equipment going up for the final round. When that win light came on, I almost couldn’t believe it. I told Jerry to not beat me up too bad before the final round and just notch another one up for Harley-Davidson. It was a hard fought weekend for us.”