The talk all weekend in the Pro Stock Motorcycle class was about Gaige Herrera – and for good reason. He was the No. 1 qualifier. He won the Mission #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge season title on Saturday.
 
Lost in all the Herrera hype was six-time and reigning world champ Matt Smith.
 
Well, he stepped in the spotlight on Monday, winning the U.S. Nationals for the third time in his career.
 
Smith clocked a 6.864-second elapsed time at 198.20 mph in the finals, but it didn’t matter because his opponent, Hector Arana Jr., had a red light start at Lucas Oil Indianapolis Raceway Park.
 
Smith has now won Indy in 2006, 2022 and 2023. This was his 37th career PSM win and his first this season.
 
Smith’s victory march at Indy consisted of wins over John Hall, Chase Van Sant, Herrera, and Arana Jr.
 
“Well, just with great crew work. My guys, we have busted our butt to find good power,” Smith said. “We have really good power. I mean, this is our second year kind of doing the Suzuki program, and we’ve got really good power. I just still cannot figure out how to make the bike 60 foot like it needs to. And we just don’t have the parts and the pieces to be able to go test a lot because the Suzuki is very fragile with the crankshaft and the cam chain.
 
“So, all in all, we came here, knew we had good power, and we could not get the bike to 60 all weekend. I think a 109 is the best we could get. And we still qualified 4th with a 111 60 foot, but we got in the 86 range with a 109. But I don’t know, we got to figure it out.”
 
Smith finished the regular season second in the points standings. He will be around 10 points of leader Herrera when the six-race Countdown to the Championship begins at Maple Grove Raceway in Reading, Pa., Sept. 14-17.
 
“Like I’ve always said, you have to be good the last six races of the year. That’s all that counts,” Smith said. “It doesn’t matter what you do in the regular season. And now is the time to turn it up, and I guess we’re here right now. We’re here, and we’ll see what happens.”
 
Herrera has been dominant this season, winning six of the nine races, but Smith believes he’s within reach of being defeated.
 
“Let’s look at Sonoma (Calif.). The last race we were at, he went 72.8, and I went 72.9, but we 60-footed. I went 104. If that’s the problem, I just can’t do that. And he can do that all the time, whether it’s hot, cold, whatever. And that’s where I struggled this weekend. I don’t think I had the right gear ratio to make it 60 foot like that when we got that bad weather. Will I have it made? Yes, I’ll have it made. And if it happens again, we will be prepared. But like I said, this is a new program. I have plenty of stuff for the V-twin side. But I’m stuck on the Suzuki this year, and I’m going to make it work one way or the other. And I’ve already told somebody if I can pull this thing off and win seven of these things, I will not race next year at all.”
 
Smith told CompetitionPlus earlier this weekend that title No. 7 might make him get off his motorcycle.

“No, I’m not saying I’m retiring, but I will not race,” Smith said. “I will take the year off and focus on Jianna and Angie to try to get them wins and a championship.”

Although Herrera has been the class of the PSM class so far in 2023, Smith is just focusing on what he can control.

“I just go up there and run my lane. I know Gaige has got the best bike, and the whole class knows Gaige has got the best bike. It’s his championship to lose,” Smith said. “But we’re coming into it second (in the points), so I feel like we have one of the best shots to beat him.
“We’re going to do everything we can. If I can get under his skin or I can get somebody else under his skin, I’m going to do that. We’re going to bring another bike out. Get ready in Charlotte, and we’re going to have somebody on it, and they’re going to play a little blocker, and we’re going to see what can happen there on the V-Twin.”

The Countdown race in Charlotte, N.C., is Sept. 22-24.

Smith was a master running a V-Twin but changed to a Suzuki in the offseason because of how NHRA’s rules currently favor Suzuki.

“It’s hard. I mean, it’s hard,” Smith said about leaving his championship-winning V-Twin, “I mean, I have a bike sitting in that trailer that I really, honestly, with the weight break that we have now, I think I can run with Gaige or outrun him. And it’s sitting there, and I can’t ride it. I’m not saying that Angie’s not going to ride it. She might jump on it. We don’t know yet. We’re going to see what Reading holds, but I might put her on that bike at Charlotte through the rest of the year and see what can happen. But I have a bike that I know that can run with Gaige. It’s just a two-cylinder, not a four-cylinder. But I think if we get our four-cylinder bike to 60 foot, I think we can run with them also.”

Smith knows his faithful V-Twin is special – to him.

“I could put a lot of people on that bike, and they probably can’t get it done quite like I can,” Smith said. “But all in all, it’s still a fast bike, and man, it’s a proven piece. It’s won the championship the last three years, and it could do it again. If I was able to ride it, I’d be on that thing right now.”

As for his blocker in the Countdown, it’s a familiar face to him.
“I’m going to bring Chip Ellis out for the next three races,” said Smith, who has brought Ellis on board during the latter part of the last several seasons.

Even before the 2023 U.S. Nationals began, Smith knew he had already won because the points reset would reel Herrera back into the pack.

“Well, I come into this race; I already said that Gaige was going to be the biggest loser of this race. And no matter if he won the race or he lost the first round, he lost the most points,” Smith said. “The whole class gained on him. Now, if we can just keep that momentum going like we just had, then we have a shot at this. Thankfully, we have a Countdown because we wouldn’t have a shot if we didn’t have this Countdown. So, it’s going to be interesting. We got to jump on him at Reading and Charlotte, and that’s why I’m bringing Chip out for those two races.”

Smith knows time is of the essence for him once the Countdown starts.

“Because if we don’t jump on them and get them out early, then we’re not going to have a shot at it; nobody will,” Smith said. “So, I’m going to do my part to try to win this thing and become a seven-time champ and go where nobody else has gone in Pro Stop Motorcycle, and we’ll see what happens. I’ve always said that if you’re No. 1 coming in, you hate the Countdown. If you’re 5, 6, 7, 8, you’re the biggest fan of the Countdown. I’m coming in No. 2 in points. But the biggest thing is he had such a huge lead that I think the whole class is a fan of the Countdown. So, we’re going to see what happens. And like I said, I’m just saying it again: if we can 60 feet, I think we can run with him.”

Smith did acknowledge he was fuming at the starting line when his wife Angie faced Arana Jr. in the semifinals.

“I mean, the whole thing is when they tell you to start up the bikes, you need to start up,” Matt said. “And we started our bike, and they want us to start our burnout before they started their bike. And I’m like, ‘No, start your bike up.’ Then I shut Angie off because I don’t know what NHRA needs to do about it, but if we can’t work on starting bikes at the same time and doing that, then they just need to throw us both out and throw somebody out because I’m not going to play that game anymore with them. They take the longest to do the burnout, to get lined up and all that, so everybody’s always waiting on them. And I just don’t want to get my stuff that hot. So, we don’t have water-cooled motors, so our stuff gets really hot, and the Suzuki is very vulnerable when it gets really hot.”

Matt is ready to essentially ready to wipe the slate clean for the Countdown.

“Chance to start fresh. I mean, I’m second points, that’s all I can say. I mean, we’re going for No. 1,” Smith said. “I think that we have a good shot at it. We’re on good air there, hopefully. I don’t think we’ll have air like this, so I think we’ll be fine. If we have Sonoma air, I think I can run really close to him. So hopefully, we have really good air, and I think we’ll be a contender, and I want to go for seven. I didn’t know if I could do it, but now, with what we’ve done, I think I can get that seventh championship.”