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Hope wins championship during rookie season
By Ralph Pokorny
Nevada Herald
Very few people win national championships. Even fewer win a national championship in their first year of competition.
David Hope, who started drag racing motorcycles this year, is one of those few, coming from behind to win the 2004 All Harley Drag Racing Association Super Sport National Championship at the final race of the year on Oct. 24.
"It was an exciting year," Hope, a 2001 Nevada High School graduate, said. Going into the Las Vegas, Nev., race, Hope said that he was in fifth place in points behind a couple of racers who had led all season.
"I knew going in that the result would be close, but I didn't know how close," Hope said.
He said that he just continued to follow the philosophy that he followed the rest of the year, to take it one race at a time.
"I went and focused on what I wanted to do and knew that the rest would take care of itself," he said.
And it did.
"When it happened it was kind of surreal," he said, adding that he did not know before the final race that it was for the national championship.
"That says something to me, to take it all," he said.
Winning at this type of drag racing is not based on the raw power and speed of the bike, but rather on the skill of the rider at completing the one-quarter mile distance as close to a target time as possible. If the rider's time is less than the target, he is disqualified.
Hope races in a class with a target time of 10.3 seconds with finishes timed to thousandths of a second.The elapsed time for his winning race was 10.324 seconds with a top speed of 119.97 mph. Riders are awarded points based on where they finish in a race. The AHDRA Super Sport circuit that Hope rode on this year had 14 races all across the country. He competed in eight of those events, including races at Bakersfield, Calif.; Bristol, Tenn.; Rockingham, N.C. and Las Vegas, Nev.; capturing three first-places finishes and two second-places, as well as the national championship for the circuit.
Riders are allowed to count the points from 10 of the 14 races for the national championship.
"We had to travel all over the place to get there," he said. Some of the time he traveled alone and when possible, his parents went as well. Hope said that his father, Dan Hope, Sr., had drag raced motorcycles in the past.
"I was always around bikes growing up: street bikes, dirt bikes. This is just another niche of it," he said. Hope said that all competitors ride motorcycles that are either made by Harley Davidson or a company owned by Harley Davidson. He rides a Buell, which is a company that Harley Davidson owns.
Several of the races that Hope has competed in during the past year will be broadcast on ESPN2 in the upcoming weeks. The race from Rockingham, N.C., where Hope finished second will be shown Dec. 8 at 5 a.m. and 10 p.m. and again Dec. 9 at 8 a.m. The championship race at Las Vegas, Nev. will be shown Dec. 22 at 5 a.m. and 10 p.m. and again Dec. 25 at 9 a.m.