Matt Smith has celebrated a few Pro Stock Motorcycle career milestones at Norwalk, Ohio’s Summit Motorsports Park.

He and Pro Modified icon dad Rickie Smith shared the winners circle here in 2013, becoming the first father-son combination in NHRA history to earn pro-class victories at the same event. That year, both Smiths went on to make even more history as the first father-son duo to claim series crown in their respective classes in the same year.

Last year Matt Smith marked his 200th bike-class start at this storied track.

The King, N.C., native has won this Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals twice.

And Saturday’s action put yet another jewel in his Norwalk crown.  

Saying he thinks he has turned the corner on his Polaris Racing Victory motorcycle program, Smith captured his 25th overall top-qualifying spot and first of this season.

He led qualifying from start to finish, settling on his 6.824-second elapsed time at 196.16 mph from the third of four sessions on the quarter-mile course. Smith was just two-thousandths of a second slower than Eddie Krawiec’s July 2014 track E.T. record of 6.822 seconds and slightly off Hector Arana’s 196.93-mph track speed mark from that same 2014 event.

Smith will begin his mission for a 19th Wally trophy by racing home-state favorite Joe DeSantis (from Rootstown, in Northeastern Ohio’s Portage County), the No. 16 qualifier on his Suzuki (at 7.056 seconds), in Sunday’s opening round of eliminations. He’s seeking his first victory since last November’s season finale at Pomona.

“Today went good,” he said of Saturday’s performance, slightly but pleasantly surprised at his 6.824-second pass.

“We didn’t think it was going to be that fast,” he said, figuring he likely would clock “maybe [6.]85. We got all the track at 60 feet. All the motorcycle guys have been having problems with 60 feet this week.”

This was the first real test for him since he missed the cut two weeks ago at Englishtown, N.J., in the bike class’ most recent appearance on the Mello Yello Drag Racing Series tour.

“We struggled at Englishtown – tire bit us,” Smith said. “We did a lot of testing in the last couple of weeks. We did a lot of motor work on the dyno, tearing motors apart and finding stuff. We know we’ve got plenty of power to run up front.

“Elite Performance has been helping us out, [helping solve] our little problems that we had going on that have been a hindrance all year. Victory, Polaris, Lucas Oil, Mark Stockseth, Magneti-Marelli, S&S – I can’t say enough about them,” he said. “Hopefully this is turning the corner for the rest of the year. We always seem to turn the corner right about now [each season]. I think we’ll be pretty competitive the rest of the year.”

Right now, he’s focusing only on this Norwalk race, where his dad qualified No. 2 in the Pro Modified category and advanced past a crashing Steve Matusek to face Jonathan Gray in Sunday’s Round 2.

“The Smiths seem to run good here,” Matt Smith said.

Sunday’s eliminations will tell whether he turns the corner and heads down a dead-end or turns the corner and gets on a roll as the Countdown looms. But then again, he has that Norwalk magic.