Soveriegn-Star Racing Adds Michael Ray, Third Motorcycle

Earlier this week, Pro Stock Motorcycle rider Michael Ray, who was the lone rider to break up the Vance & Hines team’s otherwise undefeated season last year, confirmed that he had departed the Matt Smith Racing camp for 2013. Now, just days later, Ray confirmed that he has landed — officially — at the Sovereign-Star Racing team that’s co-owned and operated by many-time NHRA championship team owner and crew chief George Bryce, where he will ride one of the team’s two Buell motorcycles on the full 16-race schedule.

Ray will join Scotty Pollacheck, who finished qualified for the Countdown to the Championship and finished an impressive No. 7 in the points in his rookie season in 2012. John Hall, who was also a rookie last year and finished No. 11, made the decision not to compete on the full NHRA circuit again.

“Michael and I have been friends for 10 years,” Star Racing owner George Bryce said. “I’ve worked with him a lot at NHRA races, AHDRA races and test sessions in previous years. He ran three NHRA races with our team in 2011 at the Gainesville, Houston and Atlanta races. Michael also has the quickest reaction time average in our class in NHRA, and he was the only guy to win a race in 2012 that wasn’t on a Harley. We are happy to welcome him as a new member of our team.”

“I met Jenõ (Rujp) when George and Sovereign teamed up two years ago when they made their European Championship run. They knew that we were an option (for the future),” Ray said. “I’d done a pretty decent job of driving the bike last year. When Viper (Motorcycle Company) and some other associate sponsors didn’t come back (for 2013), it made total sense to come back and team up with Star and Sovereign for this year.

The Sovereign-Star Racing team will also add a Suzuki motorcycle back to the mix, with development rider and three-time AHDRA National Champion Chaz Kennedy, the son of Pollacheck’s crew chief Chuck Kennedy, joining the team to ride the bike as Bryce and company work to develop and fine tune their Suzuki engine program.

“Chaz is a student of ours and has been to (my drag racing) school a couple times. We’ve decided to bring him in as a developmental driver for 2013 and have him practice and train on our new Suzuki to get him ready for NHRA professional competition,” Bryce said. 
“Chaz may not run until September. It just depends on how fast the Suzuki is; when it is fast; and how soon Chaz is fast. We decided to bring back the Suzuki because we haven’t run one in a while and we were going fast when we stopped running one in 2003.”


“Because the V-Twins are going to weigh more in 2013 than they did and the Harley team is going to have less valves and long pushrods, it seems like the Suzuki program will be a viable option for competitiveness. And we will only know if we try it,” Bryce said.