Words and photos by Tim Hailey
Layout by Marissa Gaither

Rider Chip Ellis (right) and tuner Blake Ritter weren’t intimidated by Jeremy Teasley’s HTP Performance Real Street win streak. The bounty that the Mickey Thompson Performance Tires MiRock Superbike Series levied on Teasley’s head had swelled and Ellis and Ritter planned on taking it back to Indiana with them.

But before the pair could take on Teasley for the win at Maryland International Raceway’s Fast by Gast WPGC Bike Fest — now indisputably the nation’s biggest all-motorcycle drag race — Teasley had some unfinished business to attend to. He still had to win the rain-delayed June final over Eddie Murphy. That he did on Saturday, July 17, doubling the bounty for anyone that could beat him and his Adams Performance/RS Motorsports Kawasaki ZX14 on Sunday.

No combination rose to that challenge better than multi-time AMA Prostar national champ and NHRA national event winner Ellis, his fellow Vance & Hines employee Ritter, and their Suzuki GSX-R1000.