The NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series playoffs began at historic Maple Grove Raceway, September 13-15, and in a surprising development, it wasn’t Gaige Herrera or Matt Smith who visited the winner’s circle.

Instead, GETTRX Buell’s Hector Arana Jr. scored his first win of the season, and perhaps one of the most impressive of his career, when he rode past RevZilla/Vance & Hines Suzuki’s Richard Gadson in the final round of Pro Stock Motorcycle in Reading, Pennsylvania. In the opening round of the NHRA playoffs, Arana scored the 19th win of his career with a 6.839 elapsed time at 198.38 mph in the final round.

“We have a great team, and we have a great motorcycle, and everybody on our team works hard,” Arana Jr. said. “We tried a bunch of things this year leading up to the Countdown [playoffs] and now it’s time to turn it on. We collected everything, got it together, and here we are in the winner’s circle holding up a Wally [trophy]. I couldn’t imagine a better day.”

Arana, winless since taking back-to-back victories last October in Dallas and Las Vegas, knocked off Jianna Evaristo and Angie Smith to reach the semi-finals and then got past points leader and defending World Champion Gaige Herrera, when Herrera left the starting line too soon by just two-thousandths of a second, drawing a foul start. That set up a final-round duel with Gadson, and Arana quickly tracked him down, winning at his home track for the third time in his career. The victory also pushed Arana into fourth in points, setting up the potential for a memorable late-season run at the championship.

“Fortunately for us, we were able to stay green, and here we are in the winner’s circle,” Arana said. “We have to make some more power in order to take the fight to them, but I came in here with a lot of confidence. We had a great bike, and I said it all weekend: you have to have a good, consistent bike in order to win the race, and that’s what we did.”

After the semi-final round, it was clear there would be a new winner this season, and most assumed it would be Gadson, who has recently made dramatic improvements in his first year with the Vance & Hines team. Gadson advanced to the final round for the second time this year with wins over 2003 World champ Geno Scali, Seattle winner Chase Van Sant, and defending event winner and six-time World champ Matt Smith, who was the pre-race favorite.

Gadson left the starting line ahead of Smith and quickly extended the lead when Smith’s Denso Buell encountered a mechanical issue and slowed.

Herrera, who has won seven events this season, including the recent U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis, remains in the points lead, although his edge is just 17 points over Matt Smith. After reaching the final, Gadson is 19 points behind in third, while Arana has moved to fourth, and is within striking distance with a 60-point deficit.

There are five events remaining in the season, and the NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series returns to action this weekend (September 20-22) with the 16th annual NHRA Carolina Nationals at zMax Dragway in Charlotte.