Matt Smith and the Nitro Fish Ultimate Gear Suzuki Pro Stock Motorcycle team stepped it way up this
weekend, landing themselves in the No. 2 position in qualifying for the NHRA Mid-South Nationals.
Each qualifying round was a stunner for the team that has been struggling of late. He first set a
No. 1 run of 6.932 seconds at 193.29 mph in the opening session, earning him three qualifying bonus
points. He then recorded a 6.922/194.16, good for No. 3 on Friday evening for another bonus point,
and a 6.876/194.30 in today's third round, in which he earned another two bonus points. That was
followed by a 6.932/193.40. In all, he claimed six bonus points.
"Qualifying was really awesome this weekend," said Smith, No. 4 in the Countdown to 1 playoffs
standings. "We've had a very good bike. It's been good since the start of the weekend when we
unloaded. We've basically improved every round until the fourth round this afternoon and we didn't
improve then because the track was just too hot. No one improved during that last session.
"We've got a good bike for tomorrow and we're looking to go rounds and I'm really hoping to put
this Nitro Fish Suzuki in the winner's circle.
"By qualifying so well we picked up six points, so that's really awesome. We needed to come out
here and do that and it's good that we did. We'll take all the points we can get in this Countdown.
"I think the conditions will be the same tomorrow as they were today. I think we'll go in the
6.80s. Of course, the track temperature, with the sun and hardly any cloud cover, it'll get hot
again, so we might slow down in the second and third round. But, if we can make it to the finals,
we should be good to go fast again. We've just gotta keep going down the track and making good
consisent laps like we have all weekend."
Smith faces Redell Harris in the opening round of Sunday's eliminations.
