When veteran NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle rider Matt Smith signed a two-year sponsorship agreement with Victory Motorcycles Jan. 22, he was thrilled.

After completing his first test session Feb. 16-17 at Bradenton (Fla.) Motorsports Park, Smith realizes this was going to be a work in progress.

When veteran NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle rider Matt Smith signed a two-year sponsorship agreement with Victory Motorcycles Jan. 22, he was thrilled.

After completing his first test session Feb. 16-17 at Bradenton (Fla.) Motorsports Park, Smith realizes this was going to be a work in progress.

“We ran OK, (but) I didn’t run like I wanted to,” said Smith, a 2007 and 2013 NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle world champion. “We just couldn’t muster that good of stuff down there with the Victory stuff. I was not happy with our test results with our body work right now.”

Smith said he made 12 test laps during the two days.

Victory Motorcycles’ parent company is Polaris Industries. Victory Motorcycles was founded in 1997. Victory's motorcycles are designed to compete directly with Harley-Davidson and similar American-style motorcycle brands, with V-twin engines. Polaris is headquartered in Medina, Minn.

“We have been working with Victory Motorcycle very diligently,” said Glen Gray, NHRA's Vice President Technical Operations. “We’ve been trying to have meetings with them once a week to keep the project on schedule. They started pretty late in the 2014 season and we knew it would be a challenge to get everything approved for the first race in Gainesville (March 12-15). We’ve been trying to keep things moving along and help them expedite the process.”

Gray said, Tim White, NHRA’s director of engineering and Bob Blackwell, Pro Stock Motorcycle technical department specialist, did go to Victory’s headquarters in Medina, Minn., in early January.

“Tim and Bob went there and viewed a clay version of the motorcycle,” Gray said. “We previously, had seen drawings prior to that trip, but this was our first look at a three dimension version of the motorcycle. Tim and Bob took measurements to make sure it met our Pro Stock Motorcycle dimensional requirements and everything looked very good. The next step was for Victory to make some prototype parts for us to further evaluate.”

The Victory Motorcycles deal is to sponsor a motorcycle for Smith and the one ridden by his wife, Angie Smith.

“I don’t have Angie’s (motorcycle) done yet, I just have one done,” Matt said.

Smith wasn’t alone at the test in Bradenton, PSM riders Scotty Pollacheck and Chaz Kennedy were also making laps in motorcycles they bought from Smith. Pollacheck and Kennedy’s motorcycles are powered by S&S motors.

“They ran down there, and they both ran their career best,” Smith said. “We have got good power. Scotty went (6) 78 down there, which was pretty bad a**, and Chaz went 6.82. I couldn’t get close to it, that’s all I can say.”

Smith said while he was testing Feb. 17, he had a conference call with NHRA.

“I tried sharing the results with them, and they really didn’t seem to care,” Smith said. “We went to the wind tunnel over the previous drawings of what NHRA had looked at. We had changed some stuff in the wind tunnel that would make our stuff better because the numbers in the wind tunnel were not as good as what the Buell body work is. We made some of the changes to the scoops and stuff like that, and we got it close, but it still wasn’t as good. We went down there to test (in Bradenton) and we didn’t even have those changes on there. We were going to run them, but after having a conference call with them (NHRA), they told us we couldn’t do that. Plus, we had to cut our windshield down. So, in my opinion, we are going to really struggle. It doesn’t seem like NHRA is willing to work with us right now. It’s kind of sad.”

With the Pro Stock Motorcycle season-opening race quickly approaching, Smith is getting frustrated.

“We are just trying to get the stuff that they (NHRA) want us to change,” Smith said. “This is what they told us: We want (you) to look like the other manufacturers that run that configuration. We were like, we are not a Harley, we are a Victory. If Victory wants to make something different than Harley then we should be allowed to do that and they (NHRA) are not allowing us to do it.”

Gray addressed the Feb. 17 meeting.

“We had a meeting last week with Victory Motorcycle and Matt Smith and discussed some requested changes to the design which we did not approve,” Gray said. “It is important to us to keep a level playing field among all of the Pro Stock Motorcycles and aerodynamic parity is a big part of keeping the competition close. You mentioned that Matt said that we were trying to make the Victory motorcycle look like a Harley-Davidson. We are in no way trying to make their motorcycle look like a Harley-Davidson or any other manufacturer. That’s not the case at all. When you see the bike, it will be very apparent that it doesn’t look like a Harley-Davidson or anything else but a Victory Motorcycle. We have dimensional requirements for motorcycles that all motorcycles have to meet and we are trying to keep this bike within those dimensional requirements. We have very good parity in the class right now and we don’t want to upset that with a motorcycle that has an aero advantage.”

Smith expects to learn more in early March about what his next step will be.

“I have NHRA coming to my shop (in King, N.C.) March 6, because I’m leaving March 7 to go test again.” Smith said. “They are going to be here March 6 and they are going to run my bike and Angie’s bike through the chamber and be sure that everything is to their specs like they want to see, because we don’t need to get down there and test something again or get to Gainesville and we have to do this and we have to do that to make them legal.”

Smith said his next test session will either be at Bradenton or South Georgia Motorsports Park in Valdosta.

“It is just according to what the weather will look like,” Smith said.

Smith said he thought the transition to Victory Motorcycles would be easier.

“I thought it would go a little smoother,” Smith said. “When you have a manufacturer come in, they kind of should be allowed to a certain extent do what they want. Now, we are being told that we have to do a certain thing because everybody else does. We didn’t want that. I wanted to make everything smaller not as big, and they are telling us just the opposite. We have to run just as big as these other guys and this and that, and it is like why? Why should we have to do that? If this manufacturer, if this is what they want, they should be allowed to build a bike like they want and stay in the guidelines with what the stock bike has. There just not letting us do that and I’m kind of frustrated with that.”

Gray acknowledged NHRA is keeping to its plan to get the Victory through the approval process.

“We have not seen a finished (Victory) motorcycle,” Gray said. “To date all, we have seen is the mocked up clay version of the motorcycle. Tim White and Bob Blackwell will be going to Matt Smith’s shop March 6 to review the final design. There’s not going to be any wind tunnel testing. We are just going to go and make the necessary measurements to finalize the approval of the design. Based on our very constructive meetings with Victory Motorcycle, and despite the tight timetable that exists until the Gainesville race, we feel that there is an excellent chance everything will be approved for the first race. We are very excited about having Victory Motorcycle involved in NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle competition.”

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