ANDREW HINES PREPARES FOR 4-WHEEL PRO STOCK CHALLENGE
Mon, 2010-04-12 14:00
No one can say Andrew Hines doesn’t like taking chances.
Hines, who won Pro Stock Motorcycle world championships from 2004-2006, is going to try his hand at piloting a Pro Stock car.
The 26-year-old Hines will attempt to gain his Pro Stock license when he makes some runs in the John Gaydosh Performance Pontiac GTO on May 24, the day after the scheduled completion of the O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Summer Nationals in Topeka, Kan.
No one can say Andrew Hines doesn’t like taking chances.
Hines, who won Pro Stock Motorcycle world championships from 2004-2006, is going to try his hand at piloting a Pro Stock car.
The 26-year-old Hines will attempt to gain his Pro Stock license when he makes runs in the John Gaydosh Performance Pontiac GTO on May 24, the day after the scheduled completion of the O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Summer Nationals in Topeka, Kan.
“It will be fun,” Hines said at Houston Raceway Park. “John Gaydosh gave me the opportunity to license in his car, and it’s something I’ve been looking forward to for awhile. Hopefully, we will get one of the other Pro Stock guys to hang around (at Topeka) and give me a few pointers and hopefully I will be able sign off on a license Monday afternoon (May 24).”
Hines and Gaydosh struck up a friendship when they met at Reading, Pa., last August. At that time, Hines told Gaydosh he would eventually like to drive a Pro Stock car one day.
Gaydosh, of Baltimore Md., a second generation drag racer, stated in a press release, that he would like “to pay it forward out of respect for the Screamin’ Eagle Harley-Davidson driver.”
Actually, entering the Pro Stock world is something that has been on Hines’ mind for some time.
“I’ve been talking to all these Pro Stock guys for years, and I’ve become decent friends with Jason Line, he’s always telling me that he has a car for sale,” Hines said. “If I go out there and get a license, hopefully I will be able to pursue that some day. Right now bikes are my main focus and I’m not going to take anything away from that. I just want to go out there and have some fun and see if I can do it.”
It’s still hard to believe Hines would entertain Pro Stock driving, considering the storied history of his family in the Pro Stock Motorcycle ranks. Byron Hines, Andrew’s father, is the most renowned owner/crew chief in Pro Stock Motorcycle history and Matt, Andrew’s brother and crew chief, is a three-time Pro Stock Motorcycle world champion.
“My original thought process before I even wanted to ride a motorcycle was to drive a Pro Stock truck,” Andrew said. “Unfortunately, that class went by the wayside, and I think NHRA could have done some cool stuff with that class. Maybe that could have been the first fuel-injected class with the small block motors. When the trucks went away, my bike was a fall back. I have had great success over here in my career and I can’t take anything for granted. It has been a great ride. I will always love motorcycles, but I would like to give a car a try.”
Although Hines has never driven a Pro Stock car he’s not worried about the transition. Hines has done bracket racing with street cars the past several years.
“I think I should have a pretty good shot at,” Hines said. “I have a little bit of history of driving some stuff, but nothing that has been real fast. It’s so tight in that (Pro Stock) category and that is what I really like, it really appeals to me. Having the whole field separated by 5, 6-hundredths of a second and you don’t know if you’re going to be No. 2 or No. 13 at the end of the end of the day. That’s something that’s really cool. It all about the driver on the starting line and you have to get the reaction time. I’m pretty good on a bike with it, so if I can get in a car and do some damage there, that would be pretty cool. I just have to see if I can do it first. I have watched enough runs, standing on the starting line, and you know the timing of gear pulls. I have also watched in-car cameras of Jeg (Coughlin) and Jason (Line) and all of those guys, so I kind of have a feel of what goes on down the track. As long as the thing goes nice and straight, I do not think I will have any issues. I will get
into the driving situations later.”
Hines did get a small taste of being a Pro Stock driver this weekend at the O’Reilly Auto Parts Spring Nationals in Houston.
“I got to warm-up the car three times this weekend and it was a great time,” Hines said. “I got to run it through the gears and see what the warm-up procedure is like and get used to it. I also got to get used to flipping all the switches and see what the engine feels like and see how it revs, and messing with line-lock, all the stuff that bikes do not have. I was joking with the guys this weekend, the line-lock button is by the left thumb on the steering wheel and I told them that when I see the shift light, I’m probably going to push the line-lock button on the first run, instead of pulling the gear because we shift the bike with our left thumb on the handlebars, they got a kick out of that.”
One thing Andrew doesn’t see in his future is driving a nitro car.
“I don’t know about that,” Andrew said. “I hate the smell of it and I admire what those guys do, but I think Pro Stock is the toughest category out here, tougher than Pro Stock Bike, and that’s my ambition.”
Hines, who won Pro Stock Motorcycle world championships from 2004-2006, is going to try his hand at piloting a Pro Stock car.
The 26-year-old Hines will attempt to gain his Pro Stock license when he makes some runs in the John Gaydosh Performance Pontiac GTO on May 24, the day after the scheduled completion of the O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Summer Nationals in Topeka, Kan.
No one can say Andrew Hines doesn’t like taking chances.
Hines, who won Pro Stock Motorcycle world championships from 2004-2006, is going to try his hand at piloting a Pro Stock car.
The 26-year-old Hines will attempt to gain his Pro Stock license when he makes runs in the John Gaydosh Performance Pontiac GTO on May 24, the day after the scheduled completion of the O’Reilly Auto Parts NHRA Summer Nationals in Topeka, Kan.
“It will be fun,” Hines said at Houston Raceway Park. “John Gaydosh gave me the opportunity to license in his car, and it’s something I’ve been looking forward to for awhile. Hopefully, we will get one of the other Pro Stock guys to hang around (at Topeka) and give me a few pointers and hopefully I will be able sign off on a license Monday afternoon (May 24).”
Hines and Gaydosh struck up a friendship when they met at Reading, Pa., last August. At that time, Hines told Gaydosh he would eventually like to drive a Pro Stock car one day.
Gaydosh, of Baltimore Md., a second generation drag racer, stated in a press release, that he would like “to pay it forward out of respect for the Screamin’ Eagle Harley-Davidson driver.”
Actually, entering the Pro Stock world is something that has been on Hines’ mind for some time.
“I’ve been talking to all these Pro Stock guys for years, and I’ve become decent friends with Jason Line, he’s always telling me that he has a car for sale,” Hines said. “If I go out there and get a license, hopefully I will be able to pursue that some day. Right now bikes are my main focus and I’m not going to take anything away from that. I just want to go out there and have some fun and see if I can do it.”
It’s still hard to believe Hines would entertain Pro Stock driving, considering the storied history of his family in the Pro Stock Motorcycle ranks. Byron Hines, Andrew’s father, is the most renowned owner/crew chief in Pro Stock Motorcycle history and Matt, Andrew’s brother and crew chief, is a three-time Pro Stock Motorcycle world champion.
“My original thought process before I even wanted to ride a motorcycle was to drive a Pro Stock truck,” Andrew said. “Unfortunately, that class went by the wayside, and I think NHRA could have done some cool stuff with that class. Maybe that could have been the first fuel-injected class with the small block motors. When the trucks went away, my bike was a fall back. I have had great success over here in my career and I can’t take anything for granted. It has been a great ride. I will always love motorcycles, but I would like to give a car a try.”
Although Hines has never driven a Pro Stock car he’s not worried about the transition. Hines has done bracket racing with street cars the past several years.
“I think I should have a pretty good shot at,” Hines said. “I have a little bit of history of driving some stuff, but nothing that has been real fast. It’s so tight in that (Pro Stock) category and that is what I really like, it really appeals to me. Having the whole field separated by 5, 6-hundredths of a second and you don’t know if you’re going to be No. 2 or No. 13 at the end of the end of the day. That’s something that’s really cool. It all about the driver on the starting line and you have to get the reaction time. I’m pretty good on a bike with it, so if I can get in a car and do some damage there, that would be pretty cool. I just have to see if I can do it first. I have watched enough runs, standing on the starting line, and you know the timing of gear pulls. I have also watched in-car cameras of Jeg (Coughlin) and Jason (Line) and all of those guys, so I kind of have a feel of what goes on down the track. As long as the thing goes nice and straight, I do not think I will have any issues. I will get
into the driving situations later.”
Hines did get a small taste of being a Pro Stock driver this weekend at the O’Reilly Auto Parts Spring Nationals in Houston.
“I got to warm-up the car three times this weekend and it was a great time,” Hines said. “I got to run it through the gears and see what the warm-up procedure is like and get used to it. I also got to get used to flipping all the switches and see what the engine feels like and see how it revs, and messing with line-lock, all the stuff that bikes do not have. I was joking with the guys this weekend, the line-lock button is by the left thumb on the steering wheel and I told them that when I see the shift light, I’m probably going to push the line-lock button on the first run, instead of pulling the gear because we shift the bike with our left thumb on the handlebars, they got a kick out of that.”
One thing Andrew doesn’t see in his future is driving a nitro car.
“I don’t know about that,” Andrew said. “I hate the smell of it and I admire what those guys do, but I think Pro Stock is the toughest category out here, tougher than Pro Stock Bike, and that’s my ambition.”
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