Pro Stock Motorcycle racer Angie Smith said she and her husband, Matt Smith, “win together and we lose together.” 

They literally won together Sunday at the NHRA Finals at Pomona, Calif. – no real losing at Auto Club Raceway for the King, N.C., couple. She won the event to complete what she called a “win-win,” and he completed his quest for a sixth series championship that put him in an elite circle of the best in class history.

It was a repeat of 2020, when Matt Smith won the title and Angie Smith won the event, when the Finals took place at Las Vegas. 

“For him to win the championship, me to win the race, we're going to have a party, for sure, when we go home. It’s tough out here for Pro Stock Motorcycle. All these classes are tough, but it's going to be epic,” the Denso EBR racer said. 

In the final round, Angie Smith defeated Joey Gladstone, who had eliminated her husband in the semifinal. She clocked a 6.749-second elapsed time on the quarter-mile at 199.55 mph that beat his 6.739, 199.67 by .0021 of a second, or about seven inches. 

Winning her third career trophy, she said, was “just a relief. We had done really well, but we hadn’t put the icing on the cake. I wanted so bad to win a race. But this Denso bike is set on mean.” 

She spent some of her day reassuring her normally confident husband as he tried to match former mentor Dave Schultz and fierce rival Andrew Hines for championship No. 6.

“This guy never gets nervous,” she said, nodding to Matt Smith, “and he was nervous for the sixth one. I just kept telling him, ‘It's going to be all right. It's going to be all right. Just go do what you know to do, what you've done five other times.’ I just needed to go out there and qualify well and just turn on win lights. 

“I think my goal in qualifying was just to go out there and make straight runs. And every round we just started creeping up on, we would go faster and faster and faster. So I knew I had a good bike going into today,” Angie Smith said. 

Looking back at her round-wins Sunday, she said, “Jerry Savoie has been a thorn in my side all year, and I got the win against him - and then Steve Johnson also. I mean, everybody that we raced today are very, very tough competitors when you have 16 bikes that show up and as strong as all the 16 bikes are. 

“So, turned on the win light against Jerry. Steve Johnson actually broke, but I knew I had to go out there and make a decent run, and so I had a single. But when I left the line, the bike shook pretty hard in low gear. So I told [Matt] when we got back [to the pits], I was like, ‘The bike shook pretty hard in low gear.’ So he looked at all the data and everything and made a tune-up call,” she said. 

“And I remember the last thing that he said to me and the last thing that my crew guy said to me. They both said, ‘You got this. Go do your job.’ And it took all of that, because I did my job and I won it on a holeshot,” Angie Smith said. “And I think I would rather win races on a holeshot than anything. I mean, it's nice to outrun people, but winning on a hole shot is pretty epic.” 

She said she was determined to cut a strong light when she faced Gladstone, someone she called “one of the best leavers in the class.” She said, “I was just like, ‘I just got to go up there and I was going to be fine if I went .020 [of a second, not far from a perfect .000].’ If I lost and I was .020 on the tree, then it wasn't meant to be. And I was .017 on the tree. And to win it on a holeshot, and for me to leave on him, that was awesome.” 

Angie Smith posted a third-place finish in the final standings, 91 points behind her husband. Gladstone’s breakout season ended with him landing in the No. 2 spot.