(Photos courtesy NHRA/National Dragster)

The thin 28-year-old Pro Stock Motorcycle rider who NHRA track announcer Alan Reinhart said looks like a Twix candy bar in his gold leathers left the Texas Motorplex last Sunday with the sweetest taste in his mouth.
 
The Memphis native had raced on this track at Ennis, south of Dallas, before this year’s AAA Texas Fall Nationals. He started racing in 2005 with the Gottsacker family of New Braunfels, near San Antonio, competing in the All-Harley Drag Racing Association’s 24″ Challenge class. And he won his first national event there in that series.
 
But the second-generation rider probably will remember the Texas Motorplex most as the site where he won his first Wally statue on bike racing’s biggest stage — and broke the 13-race streak of the class’ most decorated team.
 
The Vance & Hines Screamin’ Eagle Harley-Davidson team of points leader Eddie Krawiec and Andrew Hines had swept every victory since the Las Vegas fall race of 2011. Each said they knew their reign would end one day. But most figured one of “The Hectors,” the father-son Hector Arana Sr. and Jr. Lucas Oil Buell tandem — would do it. Instead it was Ray, the weekend’s No. 8 qualifier. And he did it against Suzuki rider Karen Stoffer.
 
So the Harley-Davidson team was conspicuously absent from the final round, although Ray eliminated Hines in one semifinal and Stoffer holeshotted Krawiec in the other. Neither Hines nor Krawiec ever topped the qualifying charts throughout the weekend.
 
Whatever might or might not have been happening behind the scenes, the indisputable truth is that Ray won and neither the Harleys nor the Hectors were around for a shot at Ray in the final.

 
Ray had his own theory after riding the Matt Smith-prepped Viper Motorcycle Company/Gottspeed Racing Buell to the victory.
 
“All the turmoil that’s just been brewing for a year now since the Harleys started their dominating performance and the rule change . . . [to see] a Buell and a Suzuki in the final for the first time in I-don’t-know-how-long, I think it just shows that right now if you’re coming out here and putting in the work, you can go home with a win and take a big swing in points, like we did,” Ray said.

“It was just the right time at the right place, and I did my job. And (tuner / fellow rider) Matt Smith did his job). I left on Andrew [Hines, in the semifinals], and I just outran him.
 
“I’d like to say [the new rule] is a huge help, but it just goes to show that hard work [pays off]. Don’t give up, don’t cry about the rules, don’t complain about the rules. My business and life coach tells me that you can only control yourself, and that’s what we did today,” Ray said.
 
Ray improved from seventh place to fourth in the standings as the Countdown shifts to Madison, Ill., this weekend.
 
Infused with new confidence, Ray said he plans to challenge for the championship.
 
“I think there’s no better time than now to start a run at it,” he said. “We went from seventh to fourth, and I don’t think there’s any better team on Sunday to be consistent than our bike. That’s what it takes to win championships. Right now I just want to go out and be consistent and then let the points shake out where they’re supposed to.”
 
For Ray, one of the thrills was winning in front of dad Paul Sr. (Michael officially is Paul Jr.) and mom Mary Evelyn.
 
“My dad really, really worked his butt off for a chance to win one of these Wallys and he never did it. And for me to be able to do it with my mom and dad here . . . If you can count the sacrifices that a parent makes for their kids to be successful and live their dream, it’s a fairy-tale ending to a great weekend,” he said. “It’s really surreal, and I don’t think it’s really sunk in yet that I’m getting to go home with the biggest thing that I’ve worked my whole life for.”
 
He was back Monday morning at New Braunfels, Texas, working as parts manager at Gruene Harley-Davidson.
 
So for right now, nothing, not even the amateur MMA cage fights that wife Jennifer promotes, could be as exciting as this victory.