Matt Smith rode the Nitro Fish Suzuki Pro Stock Motorcycle to a quarterfinal finish today at the
25th annual NHRA Nationals at Maple Grove Raceway.
First round of Pro Stock Motorcycle eliminations was delayed by over four hours because of water
seeping onto the track surface. When the surface was dried, Smith rolled out and defeated Shawn
Gann in the first stanza with a 7.028-second elapsed time at 189.60 mph.
He then met up with Hector Arana in the second round, but fouled out to him, posting a 7.081/186.95
nonetheless, which was disqualified. Arana took the win with a 6.980/189.87 and moved past Smith in
the point standings, dropping him to fifth place. One event remains before the Countdown to 1
playoffs begin following the U.S. Nationals on Labor Day weekend. Pro Stock Motorcycles will
compete in five of the final six races of the NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series for the
championship.
"It was a long day. It was a long day for the fans and it was a long day for the crews, the drivers
and crew chiefs," said Smith.
"It looks like we turned the corner, we have things back running again and now something else came
up and bit us. We don't know what happened, why it slowed down. We lost vacuum for some reason, but
the motor checks out OK.
"As a driver, I pushed the tree too hard. My mistake. I can't blame anybody but myself, because
Steve (Tartaglia, crew chief) let me do the clutch this weekend. I've been setting everything,
we've been really good, I think, and we've been working on things." Smith became a hired rider this
year with Don Schumacher Racing after several years of tuning his own motorcycles, so he's happy to
get his hands dirty again, he said.
"We'll go to Indy for the U.S. Nationals and we'll see what we can do there and get everything
right. Meanwhile, we're going to change motors here tonight, get everything ready and we're going
to drive all day tomorrow back to Indy and we'll test there on Tuesday."
Next up is the 55th annual U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis, on Sept. 4-7, 2009.
