Just whatever you want to do, I'm going to help you." He told me, he said, 'Man, I'll help you. "I was going down there, tearing the motors down, washing parts, and he'd do the machine work and all that and help me put them back together. "Kaase and I had become really good friends," Smith said. Kaase's top client and friend "Dyno" Don Nicholson had just retired, leaving the masterful engine builder without a flagship client. And I took a chance, and I went and borrowed the money."Įnter engine builder Jon Kaase. "I mean, here I am, got a mortgage at the house, I'm a damn bulldozer operator. "We had just built the house that we live in right now and moved into it in '79," Smith recalled. And it came at a time when Smith was the move vulnerable financially. Smith borrowed $30,000 to purchase the engine and transmission out of the crashed Mustang II from Fowler. I just got to try to do this," Smith said. "I said, 'I am as good as they are, driving these cars. Smith realized he could run with the veterans like Bob Glidden, Warren Johnson, and Ronnie Sox or the veterans of the day and had the stats to prove it. But that's how hard I worked in high school to be the best. It's normally quarterbacks, and running backs got all that stuff. First time here that had ever been done far as a lineman. I was athlete of the year my senior year and most valuable player in football. "You can talk to my football coach you can talk to anybody in high school. "I'm not bragging, but it's just the way I played ball, the way I played," Smith said. Though the odds were mightily stacked against him. Smith drew on his youth for inspiration as Fowler supplemented his racing mightily. Smith knew he would take whatever steps necessary to keep Informed Smith he wasn't rebuilding and was out of drag racing. Mustang II and crashed, destroying the machine. Then Fowler At the tail end of the season,ĭuring a match race at Richmond Dragway in Virginia, he lostĬontrol after a tire blew on the Oak Ridge Boys-sponsored Smith had plenty of reasons to doubt himself heading into 1982Īfter the way his 1981 ended. ![]() I just started winning, and I got hooked up with Keith, and then I got to winning." ![]() I had no idea I'd go any further than that. That's the people I just wanted to try to beat. "When I started racing, I just wanted to outrun Lyle Epperson and Mike Boyles. "I didn't think it was possible to win a sportsman championship," Smith admitted. Owned the Jack Roush-powered Country Shindig Maverick Smith raced as a sportsman, and later the Don Hardy-built Mustang II in Pro Stock. Those seasons Smith raced on someone else's dime. Three full seasons scored top finishes of tenth, second and second. He went professional drag racing at the end of theġ978 season in the Mountain Motor Pro Stock division, where his first Super Modified division, a class where he won so much that the seriesĬanceled the class. ![]() Smith had become an urban legend in the Bristol, Tenn.-based IHRAĪfter winning so much in 19 as a sportsman racer in the
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