NHRA world championship-winning Pro Stock Motorcycle team – Jerry Savoie’s White Alligator Racing (WAR) – has found its second rider for the 2023 season.

Tim Kulungian, the championship team crew chief for WAR, told CompetitionPlus.com that veteran rider John Hall will be aboard the team’s second Suzuki. He will be teammates will fellow WAR newcomer Chase Van Sant during the 2023 campaign. Savoie, who won the 2016 NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle World Championship, will also run a limited schedule.

“Chase will be on one bike and John will be on the other and both will run full seasons, and we will probably have Jerry for five or six races,” Kulungian said. “John rode one of our bikes in 2020 and he was on-deck to ride it in 2022 but Karen Stoffer decided to race again for us in 2022 and we were happy to have her back.
 
Through the 2020 season, Hall had competed in 67 career NHRA PSM races. He has two career wins, including the 2013 U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis. Hall won in Indy riding a Buell past his teammate Matt Smith.

“John is a great competitor,” Kulungian said. “I look at a few different things like the personalities and making sure everybody gels. There are a lot of people who exemplify certain strengths in different areas, and we want to make sure to be able support the people who invest in us and work with us. So, I think in that regard it is a really good match. John is a funny guy, and he brings a lot to the environment. He is really good at riding the motorcycle and he’s able to make changes and say, ‘I think we need to head this direction’ and you’re able to see those changes materialize pretty quick. I think he is going to do rather well.”

Kulungian is keeping simple expectations for Van Sant and Hall entering 2023.

“Traditionally in the preseason when we are kind of teaming up with a new driver and these clutches are always moving targets and the engines are getting developed on every year during the wintertime so for expectations, I would like to see both of our drivers in the top six,” Kulungian said. “I don’t have very many expectations. I just like to watch the results.”

Kulungian said the team truck left Jan. 31 to go to Gainesville, Fla., for a test session Feb. 1-3.

“There will only be one driver at that test session for us and that will be Chase,” Kulungian said. “There is a preseason test in Gainesville the week of the Gatornationals and that’s when we plan to test John. We are going to get some laps with John there and get his bike squared away.”

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