Pollard wins AMA Thunder Nationals

From Pollard Nitrosports

DORCHESTER, ON – Geoff Pollard rode the Pollard Nitrosports Top Fuel Motorcycle, tuned by his brother Greg, to a new Canadian drag bike record and the winner's circle at the AMA Pingel Thunder Nationals, Sunday Aug. 2 at historic O’Reilly Raceway Park in Indianapolis.

The team had been fighting some early season gremlins at its first two events of the year, the AMA event at Martin, MI and an exhibition appearance at the IHRA MOPAR Canadian Nationals.

“This has been a huge learning curve for us; with the help of the McBrides we have been working through our problems and to run our best time ever in the finals at Indy is very satisfying,” said crew chief Greg Pollard.

Geoff had a .079 reaction time in the final round en route to the event championship and a new Canadian drag bike record pass of 6.04 seconds at 232 miles per hour.

“I can’t believe we won Indy,” said an elated Geoff Pollard. “This is the highlight of my career and given a disappointing performance at Grand Bend a couple weeks ago it makes it that much sweeter to reset the Canadian record in the process of winning the event and beating the baddest Top Fuel Motorcycle team on the planet. We have to say thanks to Larry, Steve and the McBride team; we know they hate to lose but they helped us out the entire weekend and we really appreciate it.”

The event win came after the team ran a conservative but promising 6.36 elapsed time in the first round in a winning effort over Nauvoo, AL’s Chris Hand, who ran a quicker but losing 6.26 second pass after he was disqualified for hitting a cone at the end of the race track.

“In this game you take wins however you can get them,” said Greg Pollard. “We had some clutch issues coming off of our last event in Grand Bend so we wanted to sneak up on the tune-up over the course of this event. Our team, Aaron Langford, Jack Learment and Ron Jury, Stephanie Pollard, Bonnie Campbell and Jen Jury really worked hard this weekend. It was also great to have our Kiwi friend, Richard Maunder at Indy with us to share our win. Richard was a big help getting the bike on the track in 2008.”

The next stop for the team will be the Labour Day Weekend “Night of Nitro” show at the Grand Bend Motorplex in Grand Bend, ON where they will make exhibition passes for the large crowds that attend this annual event. Look for more information about the event as it draws nearer through the track's website at www.grandbendmotorplex.com.