Matt Smith made it clear early this season that his main goal for 2026 is to win an unprecedented seventh Pro Stock Motorcycle world championship, so he’s not going to let something like a trip to the emergency room get in his way.
Smith will not ride this weekend after being admitted to a local hospital with a gallstone flare-up, but he’ll still tune the four-bike Matt Smith Racing fleet from his hospital bed with the assistance of former MSR rider Michael Ray. Veteran rider Chip Ellis will ride Smith’s two-race-winning Denso entry this weekend and will earn points for Smith under NHRA’s Driver Replacement Policy. Ellis will also race for Smith in Saturday’s Mission #2Fast2Tasty NHRA Challenge.
“Matt started feeling bad [Thursday] morning,” said wife Angie, who, along with Jianna Evaristo and John Hall, races the MSR Buells. “He woke me up at 2 o’clock in the morning; he has a history of kidney stones, so we really thought that it was probably going to be that. So we were on the way up here, and his pain just kept getting worse and worse, so bad that I drove probably 75% of the way. I drove the hauler up here, we got it up here and got parked, and immediately we went to the emergency room.
“We got there about 12:30 yesterday, and they ended up admitting him last night about 9 o’clock. They ran a bunch of tests. I guess the conclusion is he has gallstones, not kidney stones. Gallstones produce a lot of pain, and so that’s where all the pain’s coming from, so they’re just trying to keep him comfortable right now. They are giving him fluids, and rest is the protocol, but he made the decision for me to run all the bikes; he is truly the backbone of this team.”
Smith was able to provide tuning maps for the bikes for their Q1 passes and will get after-pass FaceTime calls to confer on tune-ups for subsequent runs. It will be the first time in the team’s history that the bikes will race without Smith present, but the team is hopeful that Smith can be at the track sometime this weekend.
“Michael and I started all the bikes and warmed everything up and went to the scales,” Angie added. “We tried to keep our routine as similar to our routine as possible, especially for all of our crew guys.
“We surrounded ourselves with great people, and we’re all pitching in and getting it done, and so we’ll do what we can. We’ll do the best we can, and that’s all we can do. The most important thing is we’re gonna be safe.
“All the bikes are in one piece, and we just make good laps. At this point, I don’t really care how fast they are. I just want to make good laps.”
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