The drive for six NHRA Pro Stock Motorcycle world championships is alive and well for Matt Smith.

Smith, the reigning world champ, made sure of that by winning the Midwest Nationals at World Wide Technology Raceway in St. Louis Sunday.

Smith, on his Denso-sponsored Buell, clocked a 6.756-second elapsed time at 202.00 mph to defeat Jerry Savoie, who came in at 6.819 seconds at 197.77 mph.

Smith, who arrived in St. Louis second in the points standings, 29 points behind Joey Gladstone, is back in first by 21 points over him now..

“Yeah, like I said before this even started, Joey was going to be the biggest threat, in my opinion, because he’s so good on the tree, and you just can’t give up a couple hundredths anymore in our class right now because it’s so close and I had to step my game up,” Smith said. “He beat me already, I messed up there, and he beat me, and so I knew I had to get on the tree and this old guy did. He left on Joey, 19 to his 23. So, proud of how I did today. I rode good and I did exactly what I wanted to do and luckily, the little parts failure didn’t cost us that semifinals win.”

Smith, the reigning PSM world champ, also won PSM titles in 2007, 2012, 2018, and 2020 becomes just the third Pro Stock Motorcycle rider to win five or more championships joining the late Dave Schultz, who won six before his untimely death in 2002, and Andrew Hines, who also has six.

“We’re going for six,” Smith said. “We’ve got five championships, and I would love to add my name to that sixth championship that Dave Schultz and Andrew Hines are currently tied for. If I can put my name in there, that’s what I want to do.”

Smith has 36 career wins and four this season in Richmond, Va., Denver, Indianapolis and now St. Louis.

On Sunday, Smith had a first-round bye, beat Kelly Clontz, Gladstone and then Savoie.

“The win against Joey was probably the biggest,” Smith said. “He knocked me out second round at Reading and he went on and won the race. All in all, that was probably the biggest race of the weekend for me and our class, and whenever you beat the points leader, the class, everybody can come up and try to battle for this championship. I went out there against Kelly and put it back to normal and started going 1.07s [60-foot] and that’s just where I left it at. I didn’t try to go .60s, I just tried to turn the wind light on and go mid-70s and my bike will do the rest from the eighth-mile to the finish line with no parts failure.”

It was a memorable weekend for Smith as he won from the No. 1 qualifying spot clocking a 6.709-second elapsed time at 202.82 on Friday, which set both ends of the track record and was the quickest elapsed time of his storied career.

“It started out good right off the bat, front and qualifying,” Smith said. “We went 6.70, that’s my quickest ET ever at 202-something and we came back on Saturday and went 203. So, we knew we had a good bike this weekend. It’s just a simple fact of little parts; failures will bite you. It almost got me in the semifinals. The transmission messed up, and luckily, we had enough time to swap transmission for the finals.”

The national NHRA schedule will have a week off before returning for the Texas FallNationals at the Motorplex in Dallas, Oct. 13-16. The final two races in the season are in Las Vegas, Oct. 27-30, and Pomona, Calif., Nov. 10-13.

The big controversy in the Pro Stock Motorcycle class this season has been Smith swapping from riding a Suzuki to a Buell, which he was riding in St. Louis.

“They probably want me on my Suzuki right now, but I can promise you Chip Ellis said, ‘Dallas is going to show them how fast that thing’s going to be.’ 

“I don’t have any secrets to hide from anybody. Chip is, we live 15, 20 miles from each other. He does a lot of stuff for us on the side, and we went to Darlington and tested, and I asked him, I said, ‘I want you to come ride this bike.’ And he’s like, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘Because I want to watch the bike. I know what it feels like on the bike, but I need to see something, to see if it’s what...’ Because the computer doesn’t always tell you everything. And just watching with my own eyes, I figured, with a closer look, I could tell what it is doing. He helped with everything, and I told him, I said, ‘I want you to come ride.’ So, he’s going to come ride at Dallas.”

Smith has had his share of success in Dallas.

“We won that race last year,” Smith said. “We were low qualifier; we won the race, and that’s our intention to go down there again. Really appreciate Billy Meyer putting up the extra money for our class and all the other Pro classes to do what we do. And when you have money put up like that, you want to go after it, you want to show who’s best and what you can do and that track always allows us to do that. Hats off to him for getting it done. I’m excited for these last three races because I am really good in Dallas, and I’m really good in Vegas. I’m really good in Pomona, so I feel like we have a good shot at this sixth championship, and I just got to go do my job, and hopefully, we have no parts failures, and the driver doesn’t mess up.”