Growing up and attending races at Rockford Speedway, Dennis Smith Jr.‘s biggest dream was to one day race late models at his home track.
It was on that track Smith‘s dad raced and he would go watch as a kid. When he was 20, Smith began racing there himself.
“It‘s home. That‘s why we race there, it‘s so close,” Smith said of Rockford, a NASCAR-sanctioned high-banked quarter-mile asphalt track in Rockford, Illinois. “I‘ve been going there forever. It‘s second nature. I‘ve done a million laps around the place by now.”
Sixteen years into his career, Smith finally got the chance to get into the track‘s highest division. Even though the start was rocky, he not only lived his dream as a late model driver, he also reached Victory Lane.
“Our very first race was opening night spring classic in 2017,” he said. “We were running good and a lap car took us out and we ended up burning the car to the ground. There was literally nothing left to it, and I still owed money on my loan for it. So everybody all over Illinois, Wisconsin, all over the place sent me parts and money to put it back together. We never missed a race.
“We won a race that year.”
Smith started racing at Rockford in 2000, and dominated the track‘s lower divisions with three RoadRunner championships and two Figure 8 titles.
But a competitive nature had him longing for more in his race career.
“It was boring. There was legit no challenge left. I needed to challenge myself with something new,” he said.
Smith took out a loan to buy a late model in 2016 and began racing it the next year. Even though they struggled in the beginning, he and the team have finished in the top five in Rockford‘s late model points every year since. He‘s third in the standings with one race left this season.
Racing has always been a family event for Smith. His dad got him into the sport. His brother raced and now serves as his spotter. His wife‘s cousins help on his crew as well, and his daughter raced for a couple years and picked up a few wins herself.
He has a family, too, among the drivers, staff, and fans at Rockford.
“Especially since I‘ve been going down there pretty much my whole life,” he said. “So everybody knows who I am down there and in the Rockford area and everybody comes together and helps everybody and we all have a good time. Have some beers after the races.”
Even though he‘s been underfunded his entire career, getting to race a late model at the track where his dad raced has been a dream come true for Smith, and he‘s honoring his dad‘s race career with his car now, too.
This year Smith switched his number from 08 to 80, the same number his dad ran, and he is using the same paint scheme.
He was able to put the car honoring his dad in victory lane on the first night of the season.
“That was like double bonus there,” he said. “Winning that, I could have retired, but I wanted to win again.”
Smith‘s 2020 season hasn‘t been the steadiest. Since that win he had two part failures in back-to-back races that he said took them out of contention for the championship.
Rockford will host the track‘s points championship on Friday night, and the National Short Track Championships on Saturday and Sunday. While Smith said there‘s an outside chance of him winning the track title on Friday, his biggest goal this weekend is to get another late model win in one of the biggest races of the year.
“Win. That‘s it,” Smith said of his goal this weekend. “It‘s so cool to win at National Short Track Championships. I won a couple in the Figure 8 division and RoadRunner division down there, and even that was really cool, but to win at National Short Track Championships in a late model would be even cooler.”
A competitive edge and a dream is what put Smith in a late model. Now that he‘s lived two of his dreams, he wants to keep competing for even more.
“I was never really that good at competitive sports like baseball, football, that kind of stuff, but I‘m a very competitive person,” Smith said. “So I think it‘s the competitiveness. That‘s what I said earlier about getting out of the stocks, it just wasn‘t a challenge anymore. I wanted to compete. If I can compete at something at a high level I want to do it.
“That was like the coolest thing I thought I could ever do was drive a late model, and then to win a feature would have been the coolest thing ever and we did that. Now we just want a championship. So maybe next year.”
Rockford Speedway will host the NASCAR Night of Champions on Friday beginning at 6 p.m., and the National Short Track Championships on Saturday at 4 p.m. and Sunday at 12:30 p.m.