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Since1982, the Car Crafters’ Team has provided the best Collision, Mechanical, and Glass repair in New Mexico. Our mission is to be the body shop of choice for customers, insurance companies, and employees, while providing the highest quality and safest repairs available today.

Jim Guthrie, owner and first technician of Car Crafters, started a body shop in his parent’s garage as a teenager. After filling up the cul-de-sac with cars, Jim’s parents told him to focus on college or find a shop and move out of their garage. From that moment on, Jim has been pursuing his love for repairing and customizing cars.

Today, you can visit one of Car Crafters’ 5 locations around Albuquerque and Rio Rancho. With the highest quality equipment and certified technicians, Car Crafters can take care of all your auto repair needs. From collision repair and oil changes, to fixing that nick in your windshield, Car Crafters is your One-Stop-Shop for all your vehicle needs! On top of delivering the highest quality and safest repairs, Car Crafters also makes customer convenience and comfort a top priority. Customers can relax in our beautiful front lobby and enjoy refreshments. We offer Otis Spunkmeyer cookies and Java Joe’s coffee while you wait.

Our technicians and staff are professionally trained to handle all types of car repair needs. Car Crafters is the one stop body shop for everybody’s vehicles.

We also provide an onsite Enterprise Rent-A-Car or Hertz Car Rental and representatives from some of the top insurance companies to make sure you have a timely visit, each and every time.

STORY BY SUSAN WADE PHOTOS COURTESY NHRA.COM

In two-wide or four-wide fashion, he has crushed the competition, winning all three completed events (at Gainesville, Fla.; Concord, N.C.; and Joliet, Ill.) from the No. 1 starting position.

He has set low elapsed time (E.T.) and top speed at every race. And he owns four of the class’ top six E.T.s. and has amassed 28 Countdown bonus points so far. And he has opened a 169-point lead in the standings ahead of closest opponent, his Vance & Hines Mission Foods Suzuki Hayabusa teammate Eddie Krawiec.

He even got a thrill in the final round at Joliet, defeating Chip Ellis, one of his childhood heroes whose poster he had pinned up on his bedroom wall years ago.

His crew chief, Andrew Hines, called the team newcomer “flawless” and “a phenom” and said he’s proud to see Herrera “rise to the occasion. It’s a lot of pressure, and he’s feeling it now. The kid is just solid now.”

Krawiec said he “knew after seeing him his first weekend that he was going to be good. He has confidence when he rides, and it shows. I believe it’s very rare to see. It’s kind of hard to explain, but he just knows he can do it, and confidence is one of the key things.”

But Herrera credits the motorcycle for his perfect record: “It gives me a whole lot of confidence having a bike like this. This whole Vance & Hines team has this bike on rails, and it takes a lot of weight off my shoulders. To get a third straight win means a lot. You couldn’t draw it up any better than this. It’s just a dream right now for us.”

Herrera, the 29-year-old fourth-generation drag racer from La Habra, Calif., who has moved to DeMotte, Ind., had earned a couple of titles in other series and for the past several years had been a force in Outlaw and XDA Pro Street competition before joining the Vance & Hines organization. He had extensive experience on a Suzuki, even as the fastest Suzuki Hayabusa racer in the U.S.

He also has been a force on four wheels. He drove a Datsun in Super Gas for about a year, then he competed in Super Comp. He said, “I still actually still do drive every once in a while. I drive my grandfather's 68 blown small-block Camaro. My family started in cars, so my grandpa's heart still is in cars, but he supports the whole bike stuff, too. My dad's the one that branched off and started the whole bike deal.”

An iron worker and pipefitter during the day, Herrera works in his shop doing “custom wiring harnesses on mainly drag bikes,” he said. “I do custom harnesses. I build motors, build exhaust systems, basically build complete motorcycles besides chassis. So, I definitely branch out and do a lot. And then I do a lot of tuning. I fly all over, doing tuning, or I do remote tuning almost every other day.” Via the Internet, he has tuned bikes in Dubai. “So I'm definitely, definitely busy with the racing side.”

Herrera doesn’t travel downstate to the Vance & Hines headquarters at Brownsburg often, but Hines said he’s an asset on the mechanical side. “Gaige is a skilled welder/ fabricator, engine builder, wiring guy, and mechanic. With those attributes we gained a crewman also,” he said. “He is able to do just about anything we ask on the bike between rounds or in a thrash to change engines.”

Herrera’s beginning-of-the-season goals were surprisingly modest in light of his early success. “I definitely want to try to go for at least a top three, because I know I got the bike more than capable to be up there,” he said.

Today, in this first fulltime campaign after riding parttime for the Stoffer team in 2022, It’s hard to imagine that at this rate, anyone will overtake Herrera.

He simply, said, “My overall goal is to be consistent on the motorcycle, riding-wise, and consistent as far as holding my composure and not letting anything distract me. So it's definitely on me.”

After skipping the June 2-4 New England Nationals, the Pro Stock Motorcycle class will be back on track June 9-11 Thunder Valley Nationals at Tennessee’s Bristol Dragway.