Andrew Hines finds it hard to believe he’s on the cusp of his first pole position of the 2010 NHRA Full Throttle Series tour. His 6.977 elapsed time at 191.46, if it holds through Saturday’s qualifications at the NHRA Lucas Oil Nationals in Brainerd, Minn., will indeed mark the first time he’s been the No. 1 seed headed into race day.
 
“It has been a while,” Hines admitted. “I don’t think I’ve had a number one since St. Louis last year. Everybody’s tough out here. The Suzuki’s are tough out here. Hector [Arana] has been showing us all how to do it out here. It’s nice to have a provisional out here on Friday and hopefully it will stick. We have a couple of things up our sleeves and we might be able to pick up a bit. I’m proud of our team. We did a lot of hard work. It’s paying off.”
 
The hard work for the Screamin’ Eagle Vance & Hines team included an extensive tear down and rebuild of the team’s V-Rod engines prior to this weekend’s final event of the regular season.

Andrew Hines finds it hard to believe he’s on the cusp of his first pole position of the 2010 NHRA Full Throttle Series tour. His 6.977 elapsed time at 191.46, if it holds through Saturday’s qualifications at the NHRA Lucas Oil Nationals in Brainerd, Minn., will indeed mark the first time he’s been the No. 1 seed headed into race day.
 
“It has been a while,” Hines admitted. “I don’t think I’ve had a number one since St. Louis last year. Everybody’s tough out here. The Suzuki’s are tough out here. Hector [Arana] has been showing us all how to do it out here. It’s nice to have a provisional out here on Friday and hopefully it will stick. We have a couple of things up our sleeves and we might be able to pick up a bit. I’m proud of our team. We did a lot of hard work. It’s paying off.”
 
The hard work for the Screamin’ Eagle Vance & Hines team included an extensive tear down and rebuild of the team’s V-Rod engines prior to this weekend’s final event of the regular season.
 
“We did a lot of work over the weekend, completely tore down every engine,” Hines explained. “We’ve got a lot of engine combinations we can try. It’s good to get that baseline data on the first run. The V-Rod made a nice, clean run and that’s probably why we went to the top. We are going into tomorrow with a good idea of what we can do.”

Hines confirmed his team will likely change an engine after Saturday's first run.
 
In years past, Hines and his team have been one of the most dominant teams in the history of the Pro Stock Motorcycle division. The last two seasons have been tough for the three-time champion.
 
“It’s been tough,” said Hines. “We’ve been sitting back and scratching our heads and wondering what is happening to us. To get the performance we did out of the bike has made us rest easier. This time we started the weekend off right. Lately we’ve struggled at the start and progressively improved. Starting at the top is a nice change.”
 
Hines will be the first to admit his team hasn’t fallen off. The competition has simply caught up. That’s not necessarily a bad thing for Hines, who was often chastised in the form of rule changes aimed at limiting his performance so the competition could catch up.
 
“The addition of the 100 cc’s for Suzuki’s was the right way for the NHRA to go,” Hines said. “Instead of slowing the Harleys and Buells down, they let the class remain fast. That was a big step in the right direction for this class and makes for great racing. It’s obviously lately with the great shows and parity. It’s real fun to be out here racing now. It’s a lot more fun than it was.”
 
More fun means more confidence, at least for Hines.
 
“My confidence is about the best it’s been in three years,” Hines explained. “My riding has been way better and I have been better on the Christmas tree. I’m making nice and clean, straight runs and that’s the key out here. You can’t leave anything sitting on the table and I’ve been good at that lately. You see it in the team morale and they have a better attitude towards me. We are never down on one another, but I could tell things are working better as a whole unit.”