Gaige Herrera capped a near-perfect race weekend for the RevZilla/Motul/Vance & Hines Suzuki team by riding his Gen 3 Hayabusa to victory over teammate Richard Gadson at the Super Grip NHRA Thunder Valley Nationals at Bristol Dragway in Bristol, TN, on Sunday.
Two-time world champion Gaige Herrera posted the team’s first number one qualifying performance of the season on Saturday with a 6.831-second/197.88 mph run, capturing the top spot in the elimination ladder for the 32nd time in his career.
Racing was briefly interrupted on Sunday morning by rain showers that came in the middle of Pro Stock Motorcycle first-round eliminations. After action resumed, Herrera ran 6.840 seconds at 198.03 mph on a bye run before defeating Joey Gladstone (6.908 seconds/196.82 mph) in round two with a 6.804-second/198.67 mph pass that was the quickest run of the event.
In the semi-finals, Herrera survived a scare against Steve Johnson (9.452 seconds/91.47 mph) when his motorcycle drifted dangerously close to the outside retaining wall, forcing him to shut off early and coast to a 6.985-second/173.43 mph run against the veteran rider, who slowed with problems of his own.
The final round hosted a repeat of last year’s matchup between Herrera and his Vance & Hines teammate Richard Gadson. Despite spotting him with a starting line advantage, Herrera chased the reigning world champion down by mid-track with a 6.838-second/198.47 mph run and denied Gadson (6.883-seconds/196.36 mph) a back-to-back win in Thunder Valley.
The victory, Herrera’s second this season and 30th of his career, elevated him one spot to third place in the championship standings, just 5 points behind Angie Smith. More crucially the win put Herrera’s quest for a third world championship firmly back on track and helped erase the disappointment of a rare first-round loss two weeks ago in Maryland.
“Starting off with the number one qualifier always gives you a boost going into Sunday and it gave me a lot of confidence today. The only thing that caught me off guard was a crosswind in the run against Steve. I probably stayed in it too long, but luckily, he didn’t make a clean run, and I was able to get the win and move on. That was a hairy ride for sure,” Herrera said. “It was cool being back in the final with Richard after he got his first win here last year. Any day we put two Vance & Hines bikes in the final is a good day. I feel like my motorcycle is back to normal after having a little bit of bad luck lately. That’s part of racing, but I got a big boost of confidence back after this weekend, in how my Hayabusa is running and how I felt as a rider. I really needed this win and I’m very happy leaving Bristol with it.”
Richard Gadson qualified second with a 6.839-second/197.74 mph run on Saturday and won the Mission #2Fast2Tasty Challenge. It was the reigning world champion’s first win this season and second overall in the specialty race-within-a-race held during Saturday’s qualifying sessions that carries a cash purse and championship bonus points.
After the rain delay, Gadson defeated Wesley Wells (foul) in round one with a 6.846-second/196.82 mph run. In round two, Gadson defeated Chase Van Sant (7.616 seconds/134.75 mph) with a 6.851-second/197.45 mph run to advance to the semi-final round for the fifth time in six races this season. Gadson defeated Chris Bostick (15.822 seconds/47.56 mph) in the semis with a 6.891-second/195.96 mph run to advance to a final round for the 13th time in his career and fourth against Herrera.
The defending Bristol race winner was hoping for a repeat of last year’s all-Vance & Hines final at the track where he secured his first career Pro Stock Motorcycle win, but Gadson had to settle for runner-up after Herrera proved too fast to overcome.
The runner-up finish extended Gadson’s championship lead over Angie Smith to 68 points with two 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.
“We won the 2Fast2Tasty Challenge and I had a good bike all day today. It was exactly the weekend I was looking for minus a Diamond Wally,” Gadson said. “Of course, I always want to win, but I’m not chasing peaks and valleys this season. I’m heavy on the steady-does-it train right now. If I just keep turning on win lights and going rounds, it’s all good, and with that mentality more wins will come. This is the biggest points lead I’ve had all year, so it’s playing out great.”
RevZilla/Motul/Vance & Hines Suzuki crew chief Andrew Hines said infrastructure investments made to Bristol Dragway after last year’s race resulted in an improvement to the track surface that the team capitalized on to maximize traction early in the run.
“They poured new concrete all the way from the starting line to the eighth-mile mark. It was like a completely different racing surface compared to previous years. We had our 60-foot times dialed in compared to anybody else here. Nobody could touch what we did off the starting line today and that made all the difference,” Hines said.
“We’ve got our ducks in a row for what we need to do to run better at sea level tracks, and we’ll see if that holds true over the next couple of races,” he added. “Historically Norwalk has been good to us. There’s less elevation there compared to Bristol, so we should run a little quicker than here. It could be hot and humid, but we figured that out this weekend so we’re looking good.”
After the sixth of 14 rounds in the 2026 Pro Stock Motorcycle season, Gadson and Herrera sit first and third in the championship standings with 557 and 484 points, respectively.
The RevZilla/Motul/Vance & Hines team returns to action June 25-28 at the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals at Summit Racing Equipment Motorsports Park in Norwalk, OH.
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