36th annual event to be held Friday as part of PA Speedweek Series
Mechanicsburg – When Williams Grove Speedway gets down to action on Friday night, it will do so for the 36th year in a row in honor of a famed sprint car great, the late Mitch Smith of Linglestown.
Mitch Smith takes a moment for the camera in the 1970s as pilot of the Hamilton No. 77 sprint car.
The oval will host the Pennsy Supply 36th annual Mitch Smith Memorial as part of Pennsylvania Speedweek on July 5 at 7:30 pm.
And the race to honor Smith will pay a lucrative $20,000 to win out of a total purse worth almost $50,000.
Richard D. “Mitch” Smith was the original “Mr. Excitement” of Pennsylvania sprint car lore.
At Williams Grove Speedway alone he ended his four-decade long career in 1978 with 27 sprint car wins and nine super modified victories.
But overall on his career, his checkered flags added up to 179.
The name Mitch Smith became cemented nationally when in 1971 the “Little Guy” from Linglestown trounced the boasting stars of the United States Auto Club, not once, but three times when they towed into the region.
In 1971, USAC was to sprint car racing what the World of Outlaws is today.
USAC competition was the way to Indy. The USAC circuit groomed its drivers to sit on the Indy 500 starting grid.
And start they did.
But on June 19 and September 25 at Williams Grove Speedway in 1971 and again on July 17 at Selinsgrove Speedway, Mitch Smith used a rarely doled out temporary racing permit issued by USAC to just a few local drivers to beat the traveling band badly.
The USAC stars were furious.
Protests were lodged and tear-downs were performed.
All was legal.
Smith had beaten the unquestionable best in the sprint car business not once, not twice but three times.
The word went out.
”The Linglestown Leadfoot,” Mitch Smith, had trounced USAC in Central Pennsylvania.
Smith retired from the sport in 1978 and in 1988 at the age of 58 was felled by a massive heart attack.
In 1995 Mitch Smith was inducted posthumously into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame in Knoxville, Iowa.
It is the legacy left behind and the impact that Smith had on the sport in the region and at Williams Grove Speedway that the oval honors again this year with the running of the 36th annual Mitch Smith Memorial on Friday night.
Brent Marks is the defending winner of the prestigious Mitch Smith Memorial and in fact has won the last two Smith Memorial’s in a row.
Lance Dewease is the winningest driver in Smith Memorial history, having scored wins in 1992, 1995, 1997, 2001, 2018 and in 2021.
Fred Rahmer has four Smith Memorials to his credit along with the late Greg Hodnett.
Stevie Smith won the inaugural event in 1989.
