Army Invades Sonoma NHRA Drag Race

Former NHRA Pro Stock Bike champion Angelle Savoie and her U.S. Army Suzuki teammate, Antron Brown turned in a dominating performance at last weekend’s NHRA Fram-Autolite Nationals at Infineon Raceway.

Meeting in the final round for the first time since they became teammates more than a year ago, Savoie won her second title of the year with a 7.06 run after Brown left the starting line one thousandth of a second too soon and triggered a red-light start, negating his quicker 7.05 run.

“As far as I’m concerned, the race was over as soon as Antron and I each won the semifinals,” Savoie said. “For more than a year, our goal has been to race each other in the final and we finally did it. Of course we both wanted to win, but I think that’s the least pressure I’ve ever felt in a final. I knew that no matter who won, our team was still going to have something to celebrate.”

The Sonoma event turned out to be a complete route for the Army camp. Savoie qualified in the top spot with a 7.084 and Brown was close behind in second with a 7.087 run. It was only the third time in nine races this year that someone other than Screamin’ Eagle Harley-Davidson’s Andrew Hines has occupied the top qualifying spot.

“Our team, led by crew chief Mark Peiser, has been working overtime to develop a new engine combination for us and it’s finally paying off,” Savoie said. “For the last couple of races, our bikes have really been showing a lot of improvement. This win was special for me because I’ve never won here before. Now, I have won at least one race at every track on the NHRA tour except for Brainerd and we’ll be there in two weeks.”

On race day, Savoie made four-straight runs in the 7.0s including the best run of her career, a 7.04 in her semifinal race against Matco Tools Suzuki’s Craig Treble. She also ran a 7.07 in the first round against Connie Cohen and a 7.08 in the second against GT Tonglet’s Harley.

“I made four nearly perfect runs today,” Savoie said. “We knew the bike had those kind of numbers in it, but we just had to figure out how to make it happen. Thankfully, the weather was really good this weekend and that’s why we saw near record performances.”

While Savoie made the quickest pass of the weekend, the fastest run was made by Andrew Hines’ Screamin’ Eagle Harley Davidson with a 196.13 blast during qualifying.

“That speed was so fast, I don’t think it was real,” Hines said. “Because our front tire is so small, these bikes sometimes have a tendency to fool the speed clocks. In my opinion, any speed over 192 is probably bogus, but if they want to give me credit for going 196, I’ll take it.”

Hines made it to the semifinal round before red-lighting against Brown, who was lucky to get the win after leaving the starting line in second gear.

“That was my lucky break for the day,” Brown said. “When I let the clutch out, my bike just died. If Andrew hadn’t red-lighted, there was no way I was going to beat him. That’s just the kind of day it was for our team. We could do no wrong.”