Andrew Hines felt he had nothing to lose heading into the NHRA Las Vegas Nationals.

The three-time NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle champion from Brownsburg, Ind., entered the event fifth in the championship point standings with no realistic chance of pulling off a fourth title.

“I was relaxed today,” Hines said. “For some reason, I get all caught up into these races and the points and the battles … the rivalries. I had nothing to lose today. I knew I needed to get into the final round.”

Hines needed that final round berth to take a shot at a red-hot Hector Arana, and when the opportunity arose, he took full advantage of it, beating the points leader on a hole shot and then at the finish line. The victory cuts Arana’s lead to just 53 points over Hine's teammate, Eddie Krawiec.

“I looked past all of that [pressure] and went out there to have fun,” Hines said. “I just wanted to go out there and have fun. My dad told me to do just that.”

Hines said his Harley-Davidson was running strong all day long, almost to the point that it was too strong.

“In Memphis, we proved that a Pro Stock Motorcycle can smoke the tire off the starting line and we almost did that today in the first round,” Hines said. “Matt Hines [brother, crew chief] made a great call in the second round and we picked up almost a tenth of a second on the 60-foot”.

Prior to today, Hines has never given away one of his Wallys. Today was different, as he rewarded the efforts of his “car chief” Scott Spearman with the trophy.

“This is a bittersweet victory seeing Eddie lose in the semis but to come back in the finals and take out Hector, save some points and a glimmer of hope for our race team means a lot,” Hines said. “I can’t say enough about those who have come out and helped us.”

Hines believes the crew provided him with a bike “that might have scared Hector a little bit”.

“He must have been rattled because he did a neutral burnout at first,” Hines said. “That’s never a good thing when you’re not focusing and don’t put your bike in gear for the burnout. That’s a bad deal. I had a feeling after that we were going to get the win.”

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