Andrew Hines isn’t winning at quite the same clip as he used to. He also isn’t qualifying as well as the old days.

But that hasn’t stopped the five-time world champion from being at the forefront of the Pro Stock Motorcycle class. Case in point, Saturday at zMAX Dragway.

Despite no wins and zero top qualifier awards in 2017, Hines put together his best start to a race since Reading in 2016 with the quickest pass of the weekend to top the Pro Stock Motorcycle field at the 10th annual NHRA Carolina Nationals. Hines had a 6.825-second pass at 196.50 mph carried over from Friday night to earn his 39th career top qualifier award and first of the season.

“We feel really good about what we did today. Obviously keeping the No. 1 spot was top priority for Harley-Davidson and Vance & Hines, but today was more about learning for tomorrow,” Hines said. “With the conditions being pretty consistent all weekend long, today was more like the setup for race day. So today we were massaging a little more on the tuneup, figuring out if it needs to be leaner or richer, have more timing or less timing, and then learning the track. It was 135 degrees on the race track in Q4 and we still went down the 60-foot pretty strong for us and then to be charging all the way to the finish line, felt pretty good.

“I’ve qualified No. 1 39 times, but not a whole lot lately in the last few years. But I’ve still been winning races. That’s kind of the way we learn. In qualifying you don’t have to be the best, but if you are going rounds on Sunday, those points mean more.

“Tomorrow, for race day, I’ve got the utmost confidence in what we have for equipment underneath us. As long as I can do my job as a rider, hopefully we can come out of here with a yellow hat.”

Hines was followed by his Vance & Hines teammate Eddie Krawiec, who qualified second with a 6.836 at 195.00 mph. Jerry Savoie qualified third with a 6.838 at 196.10 mph, while Hector Arana Jr. (6.840) and Scotty Pollacheck (6.850) round out the top five.

After leading the pack on Friday, Hines added two more quick runs on Saturday, posting a top five time in Q3 before once again topping the entire field in Q4.

“We definitely have room to improve. It’s really about power, delivery in first gear. We do things different than a few teams out here and today was a learning curve about how much power we could apply to the race track,” Hines said. “That last run it shook pretty good about 30 feet, we got a little too aggressive, but that shows for tomorrow that we will have to knock it back a little bit to make it accelerate a little harder through 60 feet. It was beneficial for the runs we made today to get that data and have something to look toward tomorrow.”

Now Hines shifts his focus to Sunday and his first round matchup with Charles Sullivan, as he looks to continue a fluky little streak of wins in the right lane at zMAX Dragway.

“The lanes are pretty equal, it’s just the mojo with that right lane. It’s always been kind to me,” Hines said. “I’ve won here six times between the spring and fall and five of them have been in lane two. For motorcycles, it doesn’t play as much into it. We are really just looking at the first 10 feet, but we’ve had some luck here in that lane. And today, that was another good run in lane two. Hopefully you can expect to see me a lot there tomorrow.”