During Pro Stock Motorcycle racer Matt Smith’s championship career, he has had plenty of success at the Summernationals – including wins in 2006 and 2011.

The past two years at Old Town Township Raceway Park, however, have been a nightmare for the two-time world champion as he has failed to qualify.

The latest DNQ for Smith came June 10, and it left him shaking his head. He was 17th in the 16-motorcycle field. Smith’s best time was 6.919 seconds and it wasn’t enough to bump Kelly Clontz’s 6.914-second lap.

“We thought it might have been a motor problem,” Smith said. “The first pass the motor definitely didn’t run like it was supposed to. We changed motors and the other motor ran fine in Q2 and Q3, but we just couldn’t get ahold of the starting line. We came back after Q3 and our goal was to change the wheel and tire, and we got back and I noticed we didn’t have much vacuum on the run when I pulled the data out. I told the guys pull the valve covers and let’s see if we can see where it’s leaking and I noticed we had lost a valve stem. I opted to swap the motor and put our third motor in and see what would happen.”

It didn’t end well for Smith.

“They (NHRA officials) came by and told us we had to be up in the water at 4:30 (ET) to run,” Smith said. “My guys got the chain off and we were getting ready to take the wheel out and put our other wheel in there and we hear the first bike doing the burnout. It was like 4:20 on our clock. Immediately I said just throw the chain back on and we will go up there. We didn’t even have the body work on. We ran up there and Angie (Smith, Matt’s wife) was literally taping the body work on the bike so we could make the pass. She was up there taping the body work on to the chassis. It just wasn’t meant to be.”

Since Smith left Englishtown and arrived home in King, N.C., he has been hard at work trying to resolve his team’s issues.

“Coming home we’ve torn every motor apart and our motors are fine,” he said. “Basically, what it is the (rear) tire has lost all its grip. The rear tire only had nine laps on it, but for some reason it just wouldn’t hook. We went and tested at Darlington (S.C.), two weeks before the race, and went 6.84 (seconds) at 197 mph and we went to Englishtown and couldn’t get ahold of the race track.”

After further review, Smith wasn’t going to over-analyze his Englishtown woes.

“It was just bad luck,” Smith said. “If the (rear) tire would have had 20 to 30 laps on it, I would have said it was the tire, but when you put a new tire on it going into the race I thought nothing about the tire being bad, and for some reason it was bad.”

Before Englishtown in 2016, Smith had not had a DNQ since 2004.

“For the last two years, Englishtown hasn’t liked me,” Smith said. “I think I might skip that race next year.”

Right now, Smith is anxious to get back on track when the Pro Stock Motorcycle competitors compete at their next race – the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals in Norwalk, Ohio, June 22-25.

“We’re leaving Monday (June 19) to go to Ohio and test at Dragway 42 (in West Salem, Ohio) June 20,” Smith said. “Then, we are going to go on over to Norwalk. We want to test to just verify that we do have the tire issue resolved. My plan is to scuff in two tires, so we will have two tires ready and we will probably make some eight-mile shots to get to where I’m happy again. I know we have plenty of power to be a very competitive bike. I know we have the quickest Victorys out there even though we haven’t showed that this year yet. Once we do show our hands, we will be fast. It is just a matter of time.”