Story by: Corey Latham ~ [email protected]

Burlington, NC(January 21, 2011) — Motor Mile Speedway has become the premier track for Late Model Stock Cars as no other track in the Southeast has the car count or competition that the Radford, VA speedplant offers.

With names like Philip Morris, Brandon Dean, Tommy Lemons, Jr., Mike Looney, Derrick Lancaster and Kelly Kingery doing battle each week and more on the way this year, the place is simply budding with talent. They will all have to make room for one more in 2011, as RD Smith makes his full-time return to Late Model Stock Car racing with a team that isn’t simply going out to run good and get their feet wet, they are shooting for the championship.

Smith has been in the Late Model Stock Car division on and off since 1997, mostly at Ace Speedway in Altamahaw, NC. After racing around at a few different tracks, he got out of the drivers seat in 2003 after picking up 20 wins in that period only to return again in late 2008. He ran sparingly throughout the 2009 season racking up numerous top five finishes, but never making it back to victory lane. It all came to a halt again last season as he welcomed his second child into the world, but now he has the team and the tools to go all out in 2011.

“This is looking to be a great year,” said Smith. “I’ll be driving for the father and son duo William and Bill Smith, we’ll be going for the championship at Motor Mile. We’ll be racing the off weeks at South Boston, we’re trying to do the five race series at Caraway and maybe all the big races at Ace Speedway. We have brand new Ford’s with Jeremy Upchurch power and Marcus Richmond, so we’re loaded for bear.”

Many of you may recognize Marcus Richmond as the crew chief for Philip Morris last season that led him to victories in the Virginia is for Racing Lovers 300 at Martinsville and Danville Toyota 300 at South Boston. It was wins in two of the biggest races of the season and now Richmond will be turning the wrenches for Smith and his new team.

This team is the same team that got a taste of big time Late Model Stock Car racing last season in a few starts with longtime USAR Pro Cup driver, Michael Ritch behind the wheel. Ritch, drive the car most notably at Martinsville where he was one of the fastest in testing and practice but had problems on race weekend. Car owner William Smith has been in the game for some time now, running a car in the Pro Cup series driven by AJ Frank. RD says he and Mr. Smith met years ago at an auction at the now defunct Bill Davis Racing, the relationship continued through the years and finally things all came together.

Even though Smith has been out of the car for over a year, he doesn’t think it will affect his chances at all.

“I’m not worried at all about the driving, that seems to come easy,” said an excited Smith. “The thing that has messed me up in the past is missing the technology. Taking that nearly five year break between 2003 and 2008, when I came back things had progressed 1000%. When you miss that much time it really sets you back and I was doing my own stuff so it really hurt. With this deal we have the lastest and greatest cars, a veteran overseeing things, pretty much all the tools that we need to win races and bring home a championship.”

Smith and the team will be testing as soon as the temperature gets above 55 or so, just to get the bugs out of the car and knock the rust off the driver. Although Smith has competed with a number 16 adorning his car in recent years and although the car with Ritch was number 52, the team will be changing to number 90 for 2011. With the pieces they have in place it looks as if the new number and car will be starting a whole new chapter in RD Smith’s career, one that has great potential to have a very happy ending.