PRO STOCK MOTORCYCLE

In Pro Stock Motorcycle, Matt Smith claimed his 14th career win and first since 2011, a span of 34 races. Smith went 6.954 at 192.44 on his Viper Motorcycle Company Racing Buell en route to the victory against Scotty Pollacheck, who had a final round time of 7.008 at 191.16 on his Sovereign-Star Racing Buell.
  
“It’s been a hard road to get back here,” Smith said. “I was off on my tune-up a little bit, but we changed motors this morning and it got a little better each round. We’ve been fast on this bike and it was just awesome again (Sunday).”

Smith, who beat Hector Arana, Michael Ray and teammate John Hall to reach the final round, moved to third in the points standings with the victory. Hector Arana Jr. remained in first and Ray closed the gap in second, while Smith becomes the fourth different winner in the class through Pro Stock Motorcycle’s seven events.

“This is the way the class should be,” Smith said. “Anybody can win at any time right now. We’ve been the most consistent (team) right now, but anybody can win. It’s so easy to lose that final round, but I was good on the tree all weekend.”

Smith’s father, Rickie, took the Pro Mod win, giving the family two reasons to enjoy the weekend. See our separate Pro Mod coverage.

LE Tonglet and Adam Arana left the starting line at almost the same in Sunday’s opening round, but Tonglet slowed early and Arana advanced in Pro Stock Motorcycle action.

Arana’s time was 6.930 seconds at 193.65 mph while Tonglet’s Nitro Fish/Tonglet Racing Suzuki GSXR coasted across in 9.479 at 89.25 mph.

“We hurt the transmission,” Tonglet reported.  “It came out of third gear and hurt some things, but it should be relatively easy to fix.”

The event ended three consecutive weekends of action for the team.  Now they will have two weeks to tend to the important repairs and all of the usual upkeep necessary to stay competitive in the tough world of two-wheel drag racing. 

“It was a good three weeks,” Tonglet continued.  “We got into the top 10 and we want to stay there.”  He is 10th with 310 points.