St. Louis: Matt Smith final report

SMITH BUMPED OUT IN SECOND ROUND IN ST. LOUIS

MADISON, Ill. (May 3, 2009) - Matt Smith rode the Nitro Fish Suzuki Pro Stock Motorcycle into the quarterfinal round at the NHRA Midwest Nationals at Gateway Int'l Raceway today, but relinquished his hold on the class points lead after Eddie Krawiec won the event in a Harley-Davidson.

Smith first defeated Steve Johnson with a strong 6.969-second lap at 192.99 mph and a reaction time of .021 (.000 is perfect), then was bumped out by Craig Treble on a holeshot advantage in the second round. Smith's combination of .075 reaction time and 6.992/189.63 pass to Treble's .011/7.029/190.73 wasn't enough to take the win.

Smith fell to second place and is now 16 points behind Krawiec.

"Harley definitely has the faster bike," said Smith. "I did a bad job of driving. I let everybody down this time. I'll make it up to them. We'll go to Chicago, Don Schumacher's home track, and see if we can get us a win there.

"I don't really know what happened. I squeezed the clutch a little harder. I had an .02 light first run. I wanted to have an .03 light, somewhere in that range, and I floored it and the bike moved on me a little bit. I think I might have just tried to hold it back too much. I thought it might have rolled in too much and I didn't want to red light. But that's no excuse. It's my fault.

"All in all, we had a pretty good weekend. We didn't run like we wanted to, but I think the weather threw us a curve. I don't know."

Next up for the Pro Stock Motorcycle class is the NHRA Route 66 Nationals in Joliet, Ill., June 5-7.

-credit: dsr