AMA Dragbike Championship Series

At the halfway point of the 2009 AMA Dragbike season, John Fernandez remains the only undefeated rider in the series, taking the Jones Performance Cycles turbo ZX-14 Super Street entry to the winner's circle at the Pingel Thunder Nationals in Indy.

Fernandez and bike owner Chris Jones teamed up at the beginning of the season as little more than a partnership of convenience. Jones came off a successful 2008 campaign with rider Richard Gadson who won two events and placed third in the points. With budgets tight at the end of 2008, Jones, who runs a performance shop in Florida, was feeling the pinch of funding travel for a Northeast-based rider. To save money, Jones himself started traveling with Fernandez, a local Florida racer and fabricator who was cutting his teeth in the Real Street class where he took a win and a number four plate for the year. At the end of the season Jones and Gadson had an amicable split and Fernandez was the easy selection to fill the seat.

"If I had the money I would still be racing with Richard," said Jones. "He had other opportunities and he understood the position I was in. John was the logical choice to ride the bike because he had the skills and we were already traveling together. We are both low profile and we click real well. It could not have turned out better."

The team met with immediate success. With back-to-back wins at the opening event Valdosta and then Atlanta, the focus of the team changed.

"After we got two races on the bike we started to focus hard on winning the championship," Jones said.

The focus paid off as Fernandez not only took the win in Michigan and now Indy, but also was the top qualifier at both events.

"We are consistent-that is what wins us races," Jones said. "I am conservative and don't push the bike unless I have to. Trying to run the bike on kill will hurt you in eliminations. We are going to be strong the rest of the season."

Other big winners at Indy were Mike Slowe in Pro Street and Rickey Gadson in SuperSport, who both took their third wins of the year. Slowe set a new Pro Street eighth-mile ET record at 4.749 seconds, while Gadson set both the eighth and quarter-mile records in Super Sport.