Louise Smith

Louise Smith, know as "The first lady of racing" was born on the 31st of July 1916 in Barnesville, Georgia. She was a colourful character who just loved the sport. Her family relocated to a farm near Greenville in South Carolina when she was four years old and it was here that she had the first of her spectacular crashes. Deciding that she would like to learn to drive she started her fathers T-Model and drove It around the farm; thoroughly enjoying herself until she realised she didn’t know how to stop the car. Not knowing what to do she drove the car into the chicken house, demolishing it. Her father was not pleased. "Needless to say, the chicken house was destroyed, and the car did not look good either. My father tanned me good," recalled Louise.

Louise knew Bill France Sr. before the creation of NASCAR and he recognised her love of racing and wanted to encourage her to take par on the race track. In those days 300 or 400 fans was a big crowd, and Bill thought I could put more people in the stands," she said. When Louise went to the race track at the Daytona Beach Road Course in1949 she went as a spectator but deciding she could not stand just watching she entered the family’s new Ford coupe in the race. The fans turned out in the hundreds to see a woman compete in a race against what they considered 'real drivers'. NASCAR officials assigned her the number thirteen which she tried to swap with somebody, anybody.

"I went all down the line trying to trade that 13 off. They said, Aw, Lou, just follow us through that North Turn.' So I followed them, but when I got to the North Turn seven cars were piled up. I hit the back of one of them, went up in the air, cut a flip, and landed on my top. Some police officers turned the car back over, and I finished 13th.They told me if I saw a red flag to stop," she remembered.

"They didn't say anything about a chequered flag." When the race had ended all the drivers except Louise went to the pits. "I'm out there just flyin' around the track. Finally somebody remembered they told me not to stop until I saw the red flag. So they gave me a red flag." Louise finished 3rd in that event and went on to win thirty eight races over a period of eleven years including twenty eight Modifieds.

She mixed with the likes of Curtis Turner, Ralph Earnhardt, Bill Snowden, Buddy Shuman and Buck Baker. We travelled in a gang. If one of us had a hot dog, we'd all get a bite as long as it held out," she said. "Money was nothing back then," she said. "Sometimes it seemed like the more you drove the less money you had. I remember one time Buck Baker and Lee Petty and I had to put our money together just to split a hot dog and a Coke. I won a lot, crashed a lot, and broke just about every bone in my body, but I gave it everything I had."

Like the rest of her 'gang' Louise was a hard charger who would run for $100 to $150 prize money and if you hit the headlines like Louise did, would receive appearance money. Sometimes there were fights and she remembers one time when she had to pick up a tyre iron to help Buck Baker out. Another time the 'gang' were in a restaurant before the next race when there was a commotion outside and the men were all arrested and Louise had to pawn her ring to get them out of jail. She returned in 1971 as car owner and sponsored Ronnie Thomas’ Rookie of the Year attempt in 1978.

At Hillsborough in North Carolina she became airborne coming out of the second turn, and it took 36 minutes to free her with an acetylene torch. At Mobile (AL) she crashed with Fonty Flock which resulted in Louise up sitting on top of her car in the middle of a lake. Before another race, Buddy Shuman said, "Lou, you see that empty house up there on the bank? Be careful. Don't go up that bank and through that house." Badly chosen words for the first lady of racing who had some memorable crashes throughout her career.

Louise Smith lived in Greenville, South Carolina with her husband, Noah who was a junkyard owner who didn’t approve of her job. The couple did not have any children of their own so she devoted time to her church and local efforts to care for children at the Shriners Hospital. She was a member of The Living Legends. She was the first woman to be inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame at Talladega. Louise died of cancer in 1997 aged 89.

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Wikipedia
USA Today
Living Legends of Auto Racing

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