Who could blame Hector Arana Jr. for leaving the starting line two-thousandths of a second too early Sunday in the finals of the Mopar Mile-High NHRA Nationals at Bandimere Speedway?

He was trying to break a 43-race winless streak in the Pro Stock Motorcycle class.

Luckily for Arana Jr., opponent Jerry Savoie was over-eager to win in back-to-back final-round appearances. He was runner-up at the previous event, at Norwalk, Ohio, and wanted to earn his 10th victory in 23 finals. And he had a foul start by four-thousandths of a second.

Thanks to a first-is-worse rule, Arana Jr. claimed his first victory on the Lucas Oil Buell since the 2015 St. Louis race.

“We’ve had a fast bike for all that time. We’ve just been working on consistency,” Arana Jr. said after receiving his trophy. “Then when the bike was good, I was making little errors. It’s just dedication, hard work, and getting the bike consistent . . . downstairs playing in the basement on the Christmas Tree, practicing . . . just bringing it all together.

“Finally got over some hurdles here,” the Long Island, N.Y., resident said of the storied racetrack at Morrison, Colo., west of Denver, where he finally won in three final-round appearances. “Now we should be back on track.

“We’ve done really great things up here on the mountain. We’ve set the speed record. We’ve qualified No. 1 a few times. Three finals and we finally won the third one. It’s very gratifying to finally get the win on top of the mountain,” he said.

He used victories over Ryan Oehler, L.E. Tonglet, and Andrew Hines to go for his 12th overall victory. He’s 12-12 in career finals.

Arana Jr. said he often works on reaction times with brother-in-law Vincent Nobile, the Pro Stock contender.

“I try to actually visualize being on the bike And going down the track. It’s crazy. You even start getting the goosebumps and start feeling the flutter,” he said.

He shared the winners circle with Leah Pritchett (Top  Fuel), John Force (Funny Car), and Greg Anderson (Pro Stock).

The showdown for fourth place in the standings might have been a bit anti-climactic. But for the record, Arana Jr. ran a 7.170-second elapsed time on the quarter-mile course at 185.89 mph, while Savoie’s numbers were 7.244, 181.64.

Arana said he thinks he’s in pretty strong shape for this coming weekend’s Mickey Thompson Pro Bike Battle bonus race at California’s Sonoma Raceway.

“The bike’s running great. We have a great set-up when we come back to sea level. I’m looking forward to running some really fast runs. Hopefully, seeing some career-fast runs out there. Just got to stay consistent and ride it like I was today.”

Savoie, owner of the White Alligator Racing Suzuki, eliminated Hector Arana, Matt Smith, and Karen Stoffer on his way to his third final of the year. He’s 1-2 now, with a victory at Charlotte. He had defeated Arana Jr. in the first round at Charlotte but lost to him in the quarterfinals at Atlanta.