low, but Arana insists he wasn't
worried.
"I struggled a little in qualify-
ing, but we had a back-up plan
for race day," he said. "I did win
a couple of races on holeshots,
but you've got to have the pace
to get there and we had that. I
have a lot of confidence right
now. Can't wait to go to Pomona
and keep going. We did have a
long layoff, so I might have been
a little rusty before Dallas, but we
found our groove pretty quickly.
"We've been out here a long
time so I knew what we needed to
do to get results. I took out both
the Vance & Hines bikes and both
Smith [Matt Smith Racing] bikes
and that's never easy. Now, our
mission is to get the funding we
need to come back next year."
Smith was naturally disap-
pointed to lose the final round but
looking at the big picture, he's
well on his way to securing a sixth
championship when the season
ends in Pomona, California.
From the top spot Smith rolled
to round wins over Katie Justice,
Chip Ellis and White Alligator
Suzuki's Jerry Savoie. Smith got
some help from his wife, Angie,
who took out his closes rival, Fat-
headz Suzuki's Joey Gladstone, in
the second round of eliminations.
Angie Smith rode her Denso
Buell to a 6.910 to hold off
Gladstone's 6.928. Even though
Matt Smith didn't win the final,
he was able to stretch his lead to
104 points which means he can
win the title in Pomona simply by
winning two elimination rounds,
something he's done more often
than not this season.
"To win that sixth champion-
ship would be big," Smith said.
"Growing up, I just wanted to ride
a motorcycle. I didn't know if I'd
ever have a chance to race one
or win a championship. Now,
I have the opportunity to make
history. Six championships is the
record held by Andrew Hines and
[the late] Dave Schultz. To be
mentioned alongside those two is
something special."
The Auto Club NHRA Finals,
the final round of the 2022 NHRA
Camping World season, will
take place on November 11-13 in
Pomona, California.
Kevin McKenna
FINAL
1. Hector Arana Jr. (Bue)
2. Matt Smith (Bue)
IN
THE
WIND
P42
Arana took down defending champ Matt Smith in the final.
Arana and crew
celebrate the
unexpected win.
