McKinney’ s season started off well, with two final round appearances early in the year. But then, McKinney says,“ We got a little sidetracked.” Chris Garner-Jones took over McKinney’ s familiar number one place in points and stayed there for much of the year.“ We’ re always trying to be faster and progress the class,” McKinney explained.“ We got behind and it was a struggle. It was quite challenging.”

Going into the final race, McKinney was still over two rounds behind Garner-Jones.“ We drew it out on a piece of paper before the last race and said,‘ We have to do this to win the championship’,” McKinney added.“ After the makeup race in Bradenton we were 206 points behind Chris. He had to go out first round and I had to win the race.”

And that’ s exactly what happened. Garner-Jones made an uncharacteristic first round exit and McKinney went on to win the event, resetting the PXM national ET record in the process- twice. Thanks to McKinney’ s final round effort, the record now stands at a 3.986.

“ This is by far the most satisfying season we’ ve had. It was a struggle being down. You feel like you just lost your touch. But to come back in that way at the last race and to win was very rewarding

and almost unbelievable. We were pretty fortunate to pull it off. It’ s all my team. I can’ t take any credit.”

After two previous PXM championships(‘ 12 and‘ 13) and the AMA Dragbike championship in‘ 09 McKinney’ s total is up to six.

“ It’ s a pretty amazing feeling,” McKinney said, searching for words to describe the enormity of his feats.“ To be so dominant like we have been, it’ s pretty amazing. To able to do five in a row is unbelievable. I’ ve got a good crew behind me. We keep plugging away. We work hard at everything we do, whether it’ s work or drag racing. We give everything 150 percent. I’ ve told people, never give up. We wanted to give up a couple of times this year, but we didn’ t and we pulled it off. I’ m still kinda’ speechless about it. This champion-

PHOTO: COLE ROKOSKY