Reigning Pro Stock Motorcycle World Champion Richard Gadson raced his Suzuki Gen 3 Hayabusa to the second round of eliminations during a challenging weekend for the RevZilla/Motul/Vance & Hines team at the NHRA Potomac Nationals at Maryland International Raceway in Mechanicsville, MD, on Sunday.
The fifth race of the season brought the Pro Stock Motorcycle class to Maryland International Raceway for the first time, becoming the second venue this year to host an inaugural NHRA national event.
Championship leader Richard Gadson qualified second with a 6.729-second/201.31 mph run on Saturday, equaling his best starting position of the season.
Gadson defeated Wesley Wells (foul) in round one with a 6.716-second/201.88 mph run, his quickest pass of the weekend. In round two, Gadson ran 6.734 seconds at 201.58 mph in a losing effort to Ryan Oehler (6.697 seconds/203.12 mph), who ran a career best ET on his Buell.
The second-round loss broke a streak of advancing to at least the semi-final round that extends back to last season, but Gadson’s championship lead remained intact thanks to early losses by some other rivals. He now holds a 26-point advantage over Angie Smith with three races remaining in the regular season championship, which concludes at the U.S. Nationals over Labor Day weekend in Indianapolis. After Indy, points for the top 10 class contenders will reset for the six-race Countdown to the Championship playoffs.
“It’s a little bit of an uphill battle to beat the Buells right now. We need a big hole shot or for someone else to not make a great run to capitalize. It’s a challenge for our combination,” Gadson said. “I missed an opportunity today to put some distance between myself and Matt (Smith) and Gaige, but I didn’t lose much ground either with them going out in the first or second round. This is the first race since Chicago last year that I haven’t made it to at least the semi-final round. I’m going to use that as motivation to come back stronger in Bristol. I’m looking forward to closing the performance gap and putting a more distance between us and them over the next few races.”
Two-time world champion Gaige Herrera also had a forgettable weekend after qualifying eighth with a 6.770-ssecond/199.91 mph run, his lowest starting spot since joining the Vance & Hines team in 2023.
Herrera’s woes continued when he suffered a rare first-round loss to Brayden Davis (6.743 seconds/202.64 mph) after his motorcycle fell silent during the burnout and could not be restarted.
The early exit was only the second time Herrera has failed to advance out of round one in his four seasons with the team. The loss dropped Herrera one spot to fourth in the standings.
“I kind of struggled all weekend performance-wise and then we had a mechanical issue in the first round coming out of the burnout box,” Herrera. “We are at a disadvantage to the Buells right now. They caught up to us when NHRA added weight to the Suzukis and now they’ve surpassed us. But Andrew is very determined. He’s got a look on his face that makes me confident we’re going to come out swinging from here on out.”
RevZilla/Motul/Vance & Hines Suzuki crew chief Andrew Hines said several factors contributed to the disappointing results in Maryland, including wear and tear on engines from trying to compensate for a NHRA-mandated minimum weight advantage that favors V-Twin powered motorcycles.
“I think we got all the performance that we could out of our motorcycles during qualifying, but it was not what we expected coming here,” Hines said. “We had a problem with Gaige’s engine in the first round when the camshaft timing belt jumped some teeth. We’ve had some other parts attrition over the last few races because we’ve been pushing our engines so hard trying to keep up with the rest of the class and it’s kind of catching up with us.
“We’re here to put up the best times we can on the scoreboard, and we’ll continue to do that. We have a game plan to address what we’ve been seeing with our engines. Hopefully the win lights come with it, but if they don’t, it won’t be for lack of effort,” Hines said. “It might be down to a parity problem in the class. There isn’t enough extra horsepower for us to find in our engines to overcome the momentum advantage the Buells have right now.”
After the fifth of 14 rounds in the 2026 Pro Stock Motorcycle season, Gadson and Herrera sit first and fourth in the championship standings with 455 and 357 points, respectively.
The RevZilla/Motul/Vance & Hines team returns to action June 12-14 at the Super Grip NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals at Bristol Dragway in Bristol, TN.
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