CLERMONT, Ind. – For two of the three days of qualifying for the 57th Annual Mac Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals at Lucas Oil Raceway, former NHRA Full Throttle Series Pro Stock Motorcycle champion and 2006 event winner Matt Smith was atop the charts. A 6.954 second ET run in Q1 Friday was good enough for three sessions of blistering summer heat.
A cold front on Sunday changed that, though, and Andrew Hines made a pass in 6.909 seconds, earning top qualifier honors. Smith was still able to improve his team and keep the second spot with a 6.936 second ET. He was able to do this while also tuning the Buells for his wife, Angie, and Michael Bay, who was racing a third Matt Smith Racing bike this weekend, and while attempting to qualify one of his father’s Pro Mods into the show for the NHRA Get Screened America Pro Mod Series.
Unfortunately, Bay was bumped in PSM and Matt was unable to make a full pull in the Pro Mod. His dad, “Tricky” Rickie Smith, driving a brand-new 2012 Jerry Bickel-built Camaro Pro Mod, qualified fourth and won his first round of eliminations, run Sunday night. At the end of the weekend, Matt looked at his weekend at Indy as a success.
“The Big Go is going to be a pretty good day for us, I think,” he said. “We’ve got a good bike, we found our tune up again. We were trying some stuff and we thought we hurt the motor. We stayed up until 5 o’clock in the morning (Sunday) rebuilding the motor and putting a new crank and all that in it. As it turned out, it ran good today. We got the No. 2 spot back and we’ll see what happens tomorrow.”
Smith faces No. 15 qualifier Jim Underdahl in the first round of Big Go eliminations on Monday.
Eliminations will start Monday at 11 a.m. For more information on the Mac Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals or for tickets, visit NHRA.com.
A cold front on Sunday changed that, though, and Andrew Hines made a pass in 6.909 seconds, earning top qualifier honors. Smith was still able to improve his team and keep the second spot with a 6.936 second ET. He was able to do this while also tuning the Buells for his wife, Angie, and Michael Bay, who was racing a third Matt Smith Racing bike this weekend, and while attempting to qualify one of his father’s Pro Mods into the show for the NHRA Get Screened America Pro Mod Series.
Unfortunately, Bay was bumped in PSM and Matt was unable to make a full pull in the Pro Mod. His dad, “Tricky” Rickie Smith, driving a brand-new 2012 Jerry Bickel-built Camaro Pro Mod, qualified fourth and won his first round of eliminations, run Sunday night. At the end of the weekend, Matt looked at his weekend at Indy as a success.
“The Big Go is going to be a pretty good day for us, I think,” he said. “We’ve got a good bike, we found our tune up again. We were trying some stuff and we thought we hurt the motor. We stayed up until 5 o’clock in the morning (Sunday) rebuilding the motor and putting a new crank and all that in it. As it turned out, it ran good today. We got the No. 2 spot back and we’ll see what happens tomorrow.”
Smith faces No. 15 qualifier Jim Underdahl in the first round of Big Go eliminations on Monday.
Eliminations will start Monday at 11 a.m. For more information on the Mac Tools NHRA U.S. Nationals or for tickets, visit NHRA.com.
