{"id":92949,"date":"2023-10-24T13:10:24","date_gmt":"2023-10-24T20:10:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=92949"},"modified":"2023-10-24T13:10:24","modified_gmt":"2023-10-24T20:10:24","slug":"nhra-adjusts-pro-stock-motorcycle-weights-again-penalizes-millican","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/nhra-adjusts-pro-stock-motorcycle-weights-again-penalizes-millican\/","title":{"rendered":"NHRA Adjusts Pro Stock Motorcycle Weights Again, Penalizes Millican"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

NHRA has a penchant for punishing racers and teams that do their homework and build better mousetraps. Many remember the \u201claid-back headers\u201d era at the start of this decade, when Camping World Drag Racing Series Funny Cars had headers that were, in essence, burning up the bodies of the cars – but also making those missiles even quicker.<\/p>\n

The NHRA\u2019s tech department now has its fangs fixed, once again, on Pro Stock Motorcycle (PSM). Vance & Hines built a better mousetrap – actually a cylinder head – that showed just how good it was during the Stampede of Speed and Texas FallNationals at Texas Motorplex little more than a week ago.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
It’s doubtful the weight change will disrupt Pro Stock Motorcycle standings. Gaige Herrera has too big a lead – Anne Proffit photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Granted, Gaige Herrera rode like he stole the Suzuki Hayabusa3 in exceptional conditions, while teammate Eddie Krawiec couldn\u2019t match his speeds. Vance & Hines client Kelly Clontz had the best – and fastest – weekend of her career on her Suzuki in Texas, joining the 200mph club that has space for only 10 members.<\/p>\n

And what did NHRA do? The usual\u2026 it penalized the V&H head with a five-pound weight gain for anyone riding a Suzuki using that cylinder head. At the same time, Suzuki riders using Monster cylinder heads were able to reduce weight by five pounds, while the Buell riders are continuing on with their current weights and usage.<\/p>\n

NHRA puts its rules changes on a particular website: www.nhraracer.com, but trying to find the adjustments requires the patience of Job. For once, this adjustment wasn\u2019t too difficult to find:<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on\u00a0Pro Stock Motorcycle performance data, the NHRA Technical Department has made the following parity changes. These rule changes will go into effect immediately. NHRA reserves the right in the future to make additional rule changes to control performance and maintain parity in the category.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Suzuki (must be NHRA-accepted)<\/span>
\n<\/span>(up to 113 cid, 4-valve\u00a0<\/span>V&H Head<\/span>)<\/span>–\u00a0<\/span>640<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>645<\/span>\u00a0pounds<\/span>
\n<\/span>(up to 113 cid, 4-valve\u00a0<\/span>Monster Head<\/span>)-\u00a0<\/span>630<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>625<\/span>\u00a0pounds\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

What this really means is some riders go on diets and others, like veteran Steve Johnson, who pledges allegiance to Monster cylinder heads, will not need to eat more broccoli, as Johnson often does to stay slim.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Clay Millican’s dragster had ballast issues in Texas – Anne Proffit photo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rather than giving and taking away weights, NHRA might do well to consider how it mandates the safety of leathers so that the PSM class might avoid the issue experienced by Chase Van Sant when he had difficulties maneuvering his Suzuki away from the wall and used his knee to help slow the motorcycle, causing injury that\u2019s taking the rookie out of competition for the balance of the season. Van Sant wasn\u2019t the only rider having issues like this; he\u2019s just the one that got hurt.<\/span><\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not all NHRA rolled out after the Texas FallNationals: the tech staff made note of Top Fuel racer Clay Millican\u2019s dragster having loose ballast during the race weekend. While they didn\u2019t state when this discovery was made, Millican was disqualified from the event, losing the points gained from the driver\u2019s semifinal result and likely pushing him back in the points chase with two events remaining. No further explanation of this event was given.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New weight regulations will send some NHRA Pro Stock motorcycle pilots back to the drawing board.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":65,"featured_media":92953,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3465,3470,5029],"tags":[9267,1943,9693,7,74,8642,5759],"class_list":["post-92949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-news","category-racing","tag-camping-world-drag-racing-series","tag-clay-millican","tag-monster-heads","tag-nhra","tag-pro-stock-motorcycle","tag-stampede-of-speed","tag-vance-hines"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Clay-Millican-mug-min.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-obb","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/65"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92949"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92969,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92949\/revisions\/92969"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}