NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle title to Tonglet

Rookie LE (Louis Earl) Tonglet won the NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle Full Throttle championship with a second round win aboard the Nitrofish Suzuki in the season-ending Automobile Club of Southern California NHRA Finals at Pomona Raceway.

One month shy of his 21st birthday, Tonglet won the title in his first full year of competition when he beat Steve Johnson (Steve Johnson Racing Suzuki) in the second round of Sunday's eliminations. Tonglet red-lighted in the next round, but it didn't matter; he was the 2010 champion.

"This is just awesome going back home with this championship," Tonglet told the sport's official website, www.nhra.com. after defeating Screamin' Eagle/Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson's Andrew Hines for the crown. "We were on a tight budget and thankfully Kenny Koretsky stepped up at the right time, and we've just been on a roll since Indy. This is just huge for my dad because he hasn't won one of these. We came close a few times."

The champion comes from a racing family. His father is NHRA Pro Stock motorcycle racer Gary Tonglet and his brother, GT Tonglet, formerly raced for the Screamin' Eagle/Vance & Hines team.

Despite winning three championships, Hines felt this was his finest year.

“I think this was probably the best season of my career,” said Hines. “I had a string of seven-straight final rounds, a new national record, and five wins. I’ve got nothing to hang my head about.”

Though a number of riders won in the first half of the season, Tonglet and Hines dominated  the second half. Between them, the pair won every race starting with Hines'  victory in the late-July Mopar Mile-High NHRA Nationals in Denver. In the final seven races heading to Pomona, Hines had three wins, Tonglet four.

The day began with Tonglet trailing three-time former champion Hines by 34 points, or just less than two rounds. Hines added two points to his lead during qualifying, which meant that Tonglet had to win two rounds more than Hines if he was going to score the upset. The pair ended up in the same half of the draw, setting up a potential head-to-head meeting in the second round. It never happened.

Hines had been having clutch issues all weekend and went to a clutch set-up used on teammate Eddie Krawiec's bike for the first round of eliminations. In his first race with that set-up, the front wheel lifted, which caused the timing light to break a little sooner. After an eight-month season, and 17 races, Hines would be knocked out after red-lighting by .016 sec. in his first round showdown against Steve Johnson.

“We’ve been struggling with the clutch set-up on my bike since Las Vegas, and went to the same setting we are using on Eddie’s bike for Sunday,” said Hines. “This was the first run at speed with that clutch, and it hit too hard and lifted the front wheel and that caused us to go red.”

Tonglet still had to win and he did. He ran a 6.874 to beat Matt Guidera (Rocklin Motorsports Buell) in the first round, which set him up to win the title if he won round two. Tonglet had a nearly perfect .007 sec. reaction time and ran a 6.860 over Steve Johnson (7.018) to clinch the title.

The day wasn't over. Tonglet came up against Hines' teammate, Eddie Krawiec in the semis. This time Tonglet red-lighted by a scant .001 sec., putting Krawiec in the final against outgoing champion Hector Arana (Lucas Oil Buell). Arana red-lighted by .008 sec., but it wouldn't have mattered; Krawiec ran a 6.811, the fastest ET in NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle history. The time eclipsed the 6.815 set by Hines on Sept. 4 in Indianapolis.

“I had a really awesome bike all weekend, and we didn’t make a tuning change to it until before the final round,” said Krawiec. “I saw Hector (Arana) go red and just made my run, and the V-Rod flew fast and straight into the record books. It’s really cool to get a win and the record with the military paint on this bike right after Veteran’s Day, and it’s a great way to end a season that was a real struggle for me at times.”

The win was a perfect bookend to the season for Krawiec, who also won the season-opener in Gainesville on March 14, but it was small consolation for the team which was hoping for much more.