George Bryce’s road back to prominence in the National Hot Rod Association’s Pro Stock Motorcycle class has been a curious journey.
 
After almost a decade of frustration at races across America and even an unprecedented loop through Europe, Bryce finally has discovered the three essential elements that just might return his team to the level of Star Racing’s glory days.
 
“We have the power and the capability and the opportunity. Those are the three keys,” the Americus, Ga.-based motorcycle racing guru said.

Image courtesy NHRA/National Dragster

He said that “came to me as an epiphany” July 1, the day after the O’Reilly Auto Parts Nationals at Route 66 Raceway at Joliet, Ill.
 
It’s hard to imagine he hadn’t recited that equation ever since he and wife Jackie established Star Racing in 1980. That always was the hallmark of the Star Racing teams as they won three series championships (in 1990, ’92, and ’95) with John Myers, then three in a row with Angelle Sampey (2000-02).
 
With two-time winner Michael Ray and Houston runner-up Scotty Pollacheck distinguishing themselves this year, battling the triple-threat Arana clan and the Matt Smith-John Hall tag team, Bryce is in the hunt once again.
 
It’s thanks in large part to new rules designed to bring parity to a class that had grown weary of watching the Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson team dominate. Bryce led the charge in lobbying the NHRA for the changes. And once the changes took effect at the outset of this season, Bryce was ready to apply what he had learned during his long research-and-development stretch.

His power, capability, and opportunity have merged with Ray and Pollacheck and two Buell V-Twins. And Bryce said he hasn’t had this feeling in a long time.
 
“I would say it has been since the Winston days,” he said.
 
It’s no wonder Bryce is rejuvenated. His team — now known as Sovereign-Star Racing following his partnership with Hungarian sugar distributor Jenõ Rujp — has advanced to the final round at three of the past four races. They won two of them, two of the season’s first six events. In addition to Ray’s Wally trophies at Englishtown, N.J., and Joliet, Ill., the team has three more semifinal finishes.

 
“We got our 80th win [the Chicago] weekend, thanks to Michael [Ray] and the boys. That’s a milestone for us. When we got to 75, 76, 77, I was like, ‘Wow. I wonder if we’ll ever get to 80,’ because they’re so hard to win,” Bryce said.
 
“You get one every now and then. That’s kind of neat,” he said. “But when you get a couple in a year or three or four in a year, you know you’ve got a good package together.”

Image courtesy NHRA/National Dragster

This 2013 success didn’t happen suddenly with rule changes that hampered the Harley-Davidsons.
 
“What we have now . . . We invested in a whole year of development. We looked pretty poor last year. We weren’t running well. A lot of people made fun of us. We were actually developing an engine program and a routine,” Bryce said.
 
“We hadn’t been able to race at this level in a long time. The last time we were fully funded was in the Team Winston days,” he said, referring to the 1990s and early 2000s, when R.J. Reynolds and its Winston brand was synonymous with drag racing.
 
“We had a really good deal going in 2007 and 2008 with S&S and Drag Specialties. But we got a little bit divided focus,” he said. “I was helping a team — I was helping a customer’s team as a crew chief and an engine supplier, plus I co-owned the team that Chip Ellis rode for in ’07 and Chris Rivas rode for in ’08. So it was a divided focus. Even though we were successful and we were funded well, we just didn’t have our feet pointed in the same direction.”
 
He and Rujp definitely are headed in the same direction.
 
“My partner from Budapest, Hungary, Jenõ Rujp, he’s hard-core. He wants to win. He wants to be the best. That’s why he named his sugar company Sovereign. He demands the best,” Bryce said. “It was pretty cool to put together the group of people that we did to try to put together a winning combination like this.”

Bryce and Rujp met at Bryce’s drag-racing school at Americus in 2010.
 
“He brought a couple of riders over from Europe to get trained, then he took me to Europe in 2011 to crew-chief for his race team over there. And we won the European championship in 2011 [with Jespr Thiel],” Bryce said.
 
“For me to go out of the country was unprecedented. I’m pretty hard to get out of America,” he said with a laugh. “I’m a red-blooded American boy. I want my feet on THIS ground. I like sleeping in my bed and maybe a Holiday Inn Express.”
 
While Bryce might not have one foot on each continent literally, he’s paying close attention this season to what’s happening in Europe.  
 
“We’ve got an entry out of Norway. His name is Kenneth Vik. He’s riding a Sovereign-Star Racing bike in the European series this year. Jenõ and I are supporting him,” he said. Vik is using the new MonStar four-valve billet cylinder head, which Star Racing and Monster Race Products designed together. Bryce also has rising star Chaz Kennedy waiting in the wings here in the United States.

 
But today Ray, of New Braunfels, Texas, and Pollacheck, of Medford, Ore., are polishing that star in Sovereign-Star Racing.
 
Ray said Sovereign-Star Racing’s renewal signals that “everyone needs to take note and start sending their motors to Star Racing and get some horsepower from us.”

Touting Ken Johnson and Bryce, Ray said. “There’s not a better crew chief out there. There’s nobody that’s got more wins than Star Racing, other than Vance & Hines. And I think that if Star Racing wouldn’t have had to take a break after the 2008 season, we would have well over 100 Wallys right now.

Image courtesy NHRA/National Dragster

 “We’re definitely going in the right direction,” Ray said. “I think we’re putting ourselves in a really strong position to make a championship run. Our performance is a testament to the hard work they’ve put in over the past 24 months, building this team [and] to how we’re going to run in the summer months and continue to improve . . . when it does count for the Countdown,” Ray said. “We’re trying to get that Mello Yello championship.”
 
Pollacheck said, “We definitely have two fast motorcycles, based on the numbers we’ve been posting. It all goes back to what everyone at the shop is doing for our engine program to help us go fast.”

Scotty Pollacheck. Image courtesy NHRA/National Dragster

If sheer will would do it, Ray would be holding the trophy every time.
 
“I’m a momentum rider. If I can get going on a streak and get comfortable, there’s not anybody out there who’s going to beat me on Sunday. I have the best bike in the world and the best crew in the world,” he said. “I think we’re going to be a force to be reckoned with.”

Bryce said the Pro Stock Bike class has a fair fight on its hands for the first time in years. Furthermore, he said he doesn’t believe the new rules caused an unfair advantage in the opposite direction, that the Harley-Davidsons will figure out their new combination soon and rejoin the mix.
 
“The rules are the same for them as for us. They have unlimited resources. They have unlimited brainpower over there. They’re obviously the smartest people and the smartest team. They’ve been highly touted over the world for decades as the go-to guys,” he said.
 
“It’s a deal where they had an unfair advantage as the only team that could run four-valve cylinder heads, and they won every race. If they didn’t win one, it was because somebody made a mistake or somebody was doing a better job than they were on race day. But as far as all-out performance, nobody outperformed them as long as they had their four-valve heads,” he said.

“So we all fought to get the rules evened out, get them level again. Now there’s no reason whatsoever they shouldn’t run as good as us. We should all be right in the same E.T.s, the same mile an hour, because we all have the same rules,” Bryce said. “I think they may be in a year like we were last year, a development year, where they’re cutting new parts and going through a research-and-development phase to where they can step up the program and do better at the end of this year and next year.”

Said Ray, “The Harley team is going to come back. They don’t have all those wins and all those championships [nine in the past 16 years] for being behind the eight-ball. Right now we’re working towards getting that momentum swing in our way. You’ll definitely see those guys stepping up later. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there, but right now it’s about being consistent. We’ll take that one step at a time.
 
“I’m a huge sport fanatic,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what it is, you cannot worry about what that other team is doing. You have no control over that. If we get our butt kicked by them, every weekend our time will come when it’s our time.”
 
Clearly, he enjoys beating the Harley-Davidson duo, though, ironically, his 9-to-5 job is selling Harley-Davidsons.
 
“I love beating up on Andrew and Eddie. They’re multi-time champions. A young guy like myself who came up through the ranks — I started as a sportsman in AHDRA and worked my way up . . . to be able to battle with those guys, it’s awesome.”
 
Bryce indicated the jury’s still out about how much progress the Vance & Hines organization has made this year. Reigning champion Eddie Krawiec had said the Harley-Davidsons ought to be flexing their muscle again around the time the tour headed to Englishtown. But the Englishtown race is far back in the rear-view mirror and the Harleys have hardly shown their presence at the races.
 
So while it appears they’re still behind the curve, Bryce wasn’t 100-percent convinced.

Image courtesy Star-Sovereign Racing

“It’s supposed to be that way, but usually Vance & Hines doesn’t operate [in a] normal [way] — they’re usually above normal. And they have been since I’ve been in competition with them for 30 years. I am a little bit surprised,” he said.” You wonder about those guys, how much they’re holding back and how much they have left. The Countdown to the Championship will show us what they really have.”
 
NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle fans already know what Sovereign-Star Racing has.
 
“After struggling last year to get the Sovereign-Star Racing combination established, it’s almost a weird feeling being able to win just by putting a good tune-up in the bikes and eliminating the little mistakes,” Bryce said. “At this point, our team has a great combination of horsepower, ability and opportunity.”
 
It also has its best chance in about 11 years to claim another NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle championship.