With a dominant performance against the field, Gaige Herrera earned bragging rights and a check for $25,000 after riding his RevZilla/Motul/Vance & Hines Suzuki Hayabusa to a commanding victory over teammate Richard Gadson in the GETTRX Pro Stock Motorcycle All-Star Callout exhibition event on Saturday at the DENSO NHRA Sonoma Nationals at Sonoma Raceway in Sonoma, CA.
Held annually, the All-Star Callout specialty race is a unique grudge match-style event that pits eight top riders in the class against each other based on the average of qualifying results from all races contested over the preceding year. The top-seeded rider in the event gets first choice to “call out” the opponent he or she will face in the first round, with the second- and third-seeded riders each choosing from the remaining competitors until all four first-round matchups are set. After round one, the rider with the quickest elapsed time chooses an opponent for the semi-final round, with the winners of those two pairings facing off in the final.
The field in Sonoma consisted of Herrera, reigning world champion Richard Gadson, defending event winner Matt Smith, Angie Smith, John Hall, Jianna Evaristo, Chase Van Sant and Steve Johnson. Each competitor was allowed to make a pair of time trial runs on Friday to gather tuning data and prepare for Saturday’s main event.
Two-time world champion Herrera, currently second in regular season points and winner of races in Charlotte and Bristol, was the top seed. Herrera chose Steve Johnson in the first round and ran 6.665 seconds at 202.76 mph, the low elapsed time of the day and his quickest pass of the season to date, to get the better of the veteran Suzuki rider (6.802 seconds/193.96 mph) and secure the first pick in round two.
After calling out Angie Smith (6.737 seconds/201.88 mph) in the semi-final, Herrera ran 6.687 seconds at 202.45 mph to secure lane choice against Gadson in the final.
Squaring off against his teammate for the first time in a Callout event and the third time in a final round this season, Herrera clicked off another stellar pass in the 6.60s, running 6.689 seconds at 202.15 mph versus Gadson’s 6.795-second/198.73 mph pass to dash the points leader’s hopes of avenging his final-round loss in the Callout a year ago.
“I came to the track this morning with the feeling and mentality that we were going to win. This event is a little different because we’re not racing for points. I don’t really think about the money, but there’s a lot at stake and that’s the kind of racing where I cut my teeth. You need to have a great team and bike behind you to put the whole package together and we had that this weekend,” Herrera said, who previously won the All-Star Callout in 2023.
“This track hasn’t been great to me the last couple of years, but we bounced back today and it felt really good. We had some mechanicals and other hiccups earlier in the season and this is the perfect time for them to go away,” he said. “I sure hope my bike stays like this. It gives me a big boost of confidence going into Indy and the Countdown.”
Reigning world champion Gadson was seeking revenge from last year’s Callout, after going just -.001-second red in the final against six-time champ Matt Smith in Sonoma.
Seeded second, Gadson, winner of the most recent race on the NHRA tour in Norwalk, chose Chase Van Sant in round one, running 6.716 seconds at 201.10 mph against his opponent’s 6.824 second/197.94 mph pass to advance to the next round. In the semi-final round, Gadson faced off against Jianna Evaristo (6.832 seconds/198.90 mph), winning that contest with a 6.782-second/200.71 mph run.
Racing Herrera heads-up in a final round matchup is getting to be a regular occurrence for Gadson, who has faced his teammate in each of the three most recent events. But despite getting a nearly .030-second advantage off the starting line, Gadson couldn’t muster the performance to overcome the dominant man-and-machine package of Herrera and his Hayabusa.
“Gaige and I both come from this type of racing. We feel right at home when the stakes are high and there’s a lot on the line, so I felt like that was a little bit of an advantage for us today. I knew he had a performance advantage over me this weekend, but I was crazy enough to think I could pull something out and win that round. Gaige and I have been going back and forth over the last few races, and I expect it to be more of the same for the rest of the season,” Gadson said.
“There’s only one regular-season points race left. I’ve got a comfortable but not insurmountable lead, so I’ll go to Indy looking to win the regular season championship and start the Countdown on top,” he said. “Gaige and I have been taking turns beating each other, so if that pattern holds, I’m going to kick his butt in Indy.”
With the motorcycles not racing a Sunday eliminator at Sonoma this year, RevZilla/Motul/Vance & Hines Suzuki crew chief Andrew Hines noted the unusual nature of this year’s Callout, which is the first time a midseason exhibition-only event has been held since Pro Stock Motorcycle became a professional NHRA class in 1987.
“It was nice to turn the tables here in Sonoma. We maximized our potential by taking all the money for the win and runner-up and figured out how to run better at sea level. The last two years this track has been bad for us, but we figured out how to prevail today. We haven’t run in the 6.66s yet this year and we haven’t gone better than 6.67 since NHRA increased our minimum weight to 660 pounds. We’re still the best bike off the starting line, but if you look at how fast the other manufacturers are in the rest of the run, we’re still getting outrun from 60-foot to the finish line. We’ve got to take the win lights however we can get them, and our riders know how to get off the starting line better than anyone else in the class,” Hines said.
“We’ve got almost six weeks off now, so we’ll go back to the shop and get ready for Indy and the Countdown, which starts off with four races in a five-week stretch. We’ve got a few things to iron out, and we’ll probably line up a test session in there too.”
The RevZilla/Motul/Vance & Hines team returns to regular action September 4-7 for the final round of the eight-race regular season championship at the Cornwell Quality Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park in Indianapolis, IN.
After seven rounds in the 2026 Pro Stock Motorcycle season, Gadson and Herrera sit first and second in the championship standings with 677 and 594 points, respectively.
Following the race in Indy, points for the top ten riders in the class will be re-set for the six-race Countdown to the Championship playoffs to crown the 2026 Pro Stock Motorcycle champion.
There are more videos on the Cycledrag Youtube channel (please subscribe here) and like the Cycledrag Facebook page (Please like here) and more will be coming soon. Also subscribe to our NEW Youtube channel “Racing Jack” and Check back daily.
