NHRA - National Hot Rod Association

The Pro Stock Motorcycle championship battle took an odd turn at the Mopar NHRA Las Vegas Nationals powered by Dodge after NHRA officials decided to postpone the final round between points leader Richard Gadson and his second-place teammate, Gaige Herrera, due to excessive winds. The final will now be run during Saturday qualifying at the In-N-Out Burger NHRA Finals in Pomona, making for a frantic and dramatic weekend.

For two riders already locked in a pressure-filled championship fight, the decision sets up an extraordinary conclusion. Gadson, the reigning world champ, and Herrera, the two-time world champ whose crown Gadson took last year, will not only race for the postponed event title in Pomona, but they'll do it with the championship still hanging in the balance.

Neither had any argument with the decision after what they experienced in the semifinals.

"The semifinals were pretty crazy," Gadson said. "At the top end of the track when I turned off, I was pretty pumped up, and Eddie [Krawiec, crew chief] got up there, and I was like, 'It's unrideable. I can't ride the bike.' "

Gadson said the real warning came from watching what happened to Herrera, who had made clean runs earlier in the event before suddenly struggling to keep his motorcycle under control.

"That's a testament right there," Gadson said. "If you look at the quality of runs he was making in the first and second round, and then the semifinals, he used every inch of the racetrack.

"You can't send two people down there, and then we end up getting together, or they shut down, or one of us hits a wall or something. Then we really don't get a chance to fight for it in Pomona if somebody gets hurt."

Herrera's semifinal provided an even more dramatic perspective.

After what he described as "picture-perfect runs" in the opening two rounds, conditions changed dramatically.

"We go to the semi's, and I almost hit the wall," Herrera said. "Then I crossed over into Joey [Gladstone’s] lane past the finish line. It came out of nowhere. It was kind of like a swirl. It felt like we were going through a tornado out there. You just didn't know what to expect."

For racers wired to compete whenever they're given the opportunity, agreeing not to race wasn't necessarily easy.

Gadson admitted there was an internal battle between the competitor who desperately wanted to finish the race and the rider who understood the potential consequences.

"The racer in us is tough because you're pumped up," Gadson said. "You made it to the final round. You kind of want to win or lose. You just want to deal with it over the next two weeks and know what the points situation looks like.

"That's just the competitiveness in us. But the right decision was not to run."

Herrera agreed.

"We totally understand and support NHRA's call on moving it to Pomona," he said. "It's a smart decision, and now we're going to have to battle it out in Pomona Q3. It's going to be a lot of fun. It's going to be down to the wire for sure."

Interestingly, the two championship rivals had already discussed the situation before NHRA officials made the decision.

Gadson said they went to a trailer and talked candidly about whether either felt comfortable racing in the conditions. The problem was getting two fiercely competitive racers to actually say they didn't want to race.

"He asked me, 'Do I feel safe?' and I asked him," Gadson said. "I think in that moment I'm looking for him to say no, and he might be looking for me to say no, because neither one of us wants to say, 'No, I don't want to ride the bike,' because you're that competitive. You want to race."

Gadson also sought the opinions of veteran riders and team owners Eddie Krawiec and Andrew Hines.

"I said, 'What do y'all think? You guys own these bikes. What are you thinking?' I think they were hoping we just said no because nobody really wanted to do this."

Ultimately, neither had to. NHRA made the decision for them, ensuring that one of the season's biggest races will instead be settled on an even bigger stage, and that considerably raises the stakes for Pomona. What was already going to be an emotional championship weekend has effectively become a Pro Stock Motorcycle doubleheader, with Gadson and Herrera staring across the starting line at one another for the postponed final before continuing their championship fight.

"It's going to be a lot of fun," Herrera said. "It's going to be emotional. It's going to be heartache, and we're both going to be sweating the whole weekend."

Herrera couldn't resist applying a little psychological pressure to his rival, either.

"Richard's going to have two weeks to think about me whipping up on him two times at Pomona," Herrera joked. "We'll see what happens."

Gadson knows exactly what is coming. Herrera's recent performance has made that impossible to ignore.

"We can all see his performance right now," Gadson said. "His bike's fast, so for me to look in the rearview mirror and look at what's coming behind me is hard to watch.

"But this is what we were born for. This is what we were built for. This is the way it should have been. Now Pomona is a doubleheader, making up for last year [when the race was rained out, giving Gadson the championship]. You get to see two finals in one race, and it's going to be a long Saturday and Sunday.

"You better have a lot of fun Friday, because Saturday and Sunday are going to be serious as hell."