After two days of rain, everyone at Maple Grove Raceway was happy to see a dry racetrack Sunday, but for the father/son duo of Hector Arana Sr. and Hector Arana Jr. of the Lucas Oil Pro Stock Motorcycle Buell race team, it still felt like a washout as both men exited the NHRA Keystone Nationals far earlier than they had hoped.
Arana Jr., who entered the race fresh off a victory over his father last weekend in St. Louis, was hoping to chop away at the 34-point deficit he had to championship leader Andrew Hines. Instead, he fouled out on the second round, with Hines ultimately moving on and padding his margin.
“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know,” an exasperated Arana Jr. said. “That was a total screwup. Very, very frustrating but nothing we can do about it but go to the next race and make up for it, so hopefully we can do just that.
![Hector Arana Jr. and Sr.](http://www.cycledrag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Maple-Grove-013-1024x768.jpg)
“We’ll see what happens with Andrew and the others. It is what it is, so, you know, I feel bad because all of the hard work everybody else has done and I feel like I screwed it up. Whatever; I just want to go on to the next one.”
After a weird two days of qualifying that ended with only one round completed and Arana Jr. back in the 11th slot, the contender rose up and beat Scotty Pollacheck with a 6.822-second pass at 196.90 mph to Pollacheck’s resigned 16.865 at 38.00 mph.
But Arana Jr. was a little too anxious against Chip Ellis, jumping the green light .168-second too early and handing the win to his opponent.
“I’m ready for a weekend off. It’s been crazy since Indy. I’ve been gone every weekend because when we weren’t racing, we were testing and it has been non-stop, so it will be nice to have one weekend off and get a little bit of a breather, for sure.”
Race day was even worse for Arana Sr., who got a jump on Round 1 foe Jerry Savoie only to get passed and beaten with a 6.875 at 194.24 mph to his 6.954 at 179.21 mph.
![Hector Arana Jr.](http://www.cycledrag.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/1j3rsLs-1024x695.jpg)
“This weekend, it was tough for the team, for the whole team,” Arana Sr. said. “But anyway, we just gotta lick our wounds and see where we missed the tune-up so we don’t have these same problems again. I plan to forget all about this mess and go to the next event with a clean sheet of paper.
“We definitely need a weekend off. It’s going to be great to relax just a little bit and not be under the gun for a few days. Then we’ll head to Dallas and try to win another race. There’s no panic over here. We’ll be fine.”
The tour takes a weekend off before returning to action Oct. 16-18 at Texas Motorplex near Dallas.