Posted By: brian smith on August 24 2018 at 10:18:04 AM
I posted this on Facebook back in January but it probably fits this thread.
20 years ago about this time, my dad Michael W. Smith had a crazy idea. I mean REALLY crazy. He wanted to run the entire All Star Circuit of Champions schedule. 70 races. Not 55 like now, but 70. Places like Williams Grove PA, Knoxville Raceway IA, Volusia County FL, Wakeeney KS, Hartford South Dakota, Bulls Gap TN, Crystal Mi, Eagle Nebraska, Tulsa Oklahoma, Kokomo In, and everything in between. Racing with legends week in and week out like Frankie Kerr, Kenny Jacobs, Joey Saldana, Kevin Huntley, Keith Kaufman, Jeff Shepard, Dean Jacobs, Brian Paulus, and Sarah Fisher.
Here’s the kicker...all while both of us worked full time jobs and my brother Todd was in College full time...with ONE CAR...and ONE MOTOR... Let that sink in for a minute. Oh, and my wife Kimberly pregnant with our first daughter.
To this day I still can’t believe we pulled it off. 38,000 miles, tons of lost sleep, arguments, getting fired and locked out of the garage, casinos, overtime, ultrasounds, getting lost, sleeping in the truck, making a USAC feature, falling asleep at the wheel (in the race car and the tow vehicle) crashing into a NASCAR crew chief, flipping under yellow at Port Royal, having Joey Saldana tell me I was braver than him, driving the Hampshire 63 at Eldora, Kenny Jacobs falling asleep on my shoulder at Keith Kaufmann’s house and so,so much more. My dad finished 5th in owner points and I finished 6th in driver points in the final standings. We made hundreds of friends and thousands of memories, most good, some bad, but I treasure all of them. Unbelievably, all our wives are the same now as they were then. Kimberly, Carol Ann Smith, Clare Smith were all critical to our success along with a huge list of others.
Some day I need to write a book. It was an amazing time in my life I’ll never forget.
p.s.
Im still running the same bottom end tonight at Attica. It was the same engine all together till this past offseason.
|