Harley riders Hines (left) or Krawiec have won every PSM event this season. (Ron Lewis photo)

With the win, the Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson team claimed victories in all 10 regular season events and Krawiec locked up the top seed for the playoffs. Michael Ray, Shawn Gann and Matt Smith claimed the final three playoff positions in the PSM top 10.

“We remained undefeated in the regular season, so [teammate Eddie Krawiec] and I intend to extend our streak,” Hines said. “Charlotte and Dallas are two tracks that I’ve never won at, so those are the last two on my list there. It’s a whole new deal now with the Countdown. Luckily I just made up a whole bunch of points on [first place] Eddie, but that doesn’t matter because they all get reset. He’s 30 in front of me, we’ve got six races to go, and luckily my motorcycle finally turned the corner and we could have fun with it and tune it.”

Hector Arana Sr. (Ron Lewis photo)

Lucas Oil Buell rider Hector Arana Sr. had one of his best races in the biggest event of the season. Arana rode well in all four rounds and reached the final of the 58th annual Mac Tools U.S. Nationals on Sunday for the second time in four years.But he suffered an engine failure in the final against Andrew Hines as he pushed for his second victory in the Big Go.

"It hurt the motor," said Arana Sr., who won this race in 2009. "I looked in the throttle body, and I can see the valve and part of the piston shoved inside the head to the throttle body. Let's hope it didn't ruin the injectors. It's not good."

Arana Sr. was gunning for his first win since '09, and his performance was terrific. He had two .007-second reaction times Sunday and averaged a .025 light in reaching his second final round of 2012.

"I was calm, I was focused," Arana Sr. said. "I had excellent lights. I think I did my job."