In Pro Stock Motorcycle, Richard Gadson got the victory on the starting line when teammate Gaige Herrera went red in the championship round, handing the points leader and reigning world champion his third victory of the year on his RevZilla/Motul/Vance & Hines Suzuki.
Herrera left .018 early, handing the victory to Gadson, who delivered a solid run of 6.789 at 199.65 en route to his seventh career victory. After an early loss last week in the playoff opener, Gadson got back on track in a major way, opening up a 64-point lead over Herrera with four races remaining.
On Sunday, he got past Geno Scali, Ryan Oehler and Chase Van Sant to reach the final round and set up another marquee matchup with his Vance & Hines teammate. They’re now 3-3 against each other in final rounds, but it was Gadson who took the victory at Rockingham Dragway to keep him in a great position to win a second straight world championship.
“I feel like I got away with one here this weekend. It’s kind of been our M.O. It wasn’t fancy. It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t headline-worthy, but you know, we’re here holding our third diamond Wally,” Gadson said.
“Gaige and I are extremely competitive with each other, sometimes to the point where the lines are blurry in our competitiveness because he’s a friend. I’ve got a lot of respect for the guy, but I’m playing mind games the whole time. He’s playing games the whole time, and you know I said. ‘It’s his race to lose,’ hoping that he would lose the race somehow. In order to win the race, you got to be green four times. Gaige went for the E.T., and he got away with it three rounds, but we decided we’re just going to race our lane, so it’s a lot of strategizing, and it paid off.”
Herrera reached the finals for the fourth time this season and 36th time in his career thanks to round wins against Lance Bonham, Clayton Howey and Joey Gladstone. M. Smith is 81 points back in third.
The NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series returns to action Oct. 2-4 with the 15th annual NAPA Auto Parts NHRA Midwest Nationals at World Wide Technology Raceway in St. Louis.
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