Famous father aside, Smith is working hard to prove herself inTop Fuel bid
Anna Lisa Smith wants to be a Top Fuel driver by next September, but she’s not kidding herself that it’s going to be easy. The sole daughter and youngest child of motorsports impresario O. Bruton Smith knows that she faces a long and challenging road to the cockpit of one of the world’s quickest-accelerating race machines in next year’s NHRA Full Throttle Drag Racing Series.
It’s not so much that until two months ago she’d never driven anything more powerful than a passenger car because she’s already proven herself an adept and eager student at the hands of former Pro Stock driver and veteran racing school instructor Roy Hill, but she knows exactly how people might look at the beautiful, young daughter of a millionaire motorsports mogul and scoff at her Top Fuel dreams.
“I know that people are going to talk bad about this whole thing, and I’m fine with that,” she said confidently. “I understand; I just got into this, and I would talk bad about me if it was the other way around. This little girl wakes up one day, and, ‘Oooh, I like drag racing; I want to do that. Get me a car.’ I would be, ‘What? Are you kidding me?’ I understand that, but I’ll just have to prove myself when I get out there on the track.”
Although her father is not bankrolling this endeavor — currently Hill is financing her racing education — she’s not unaware that people might draw other conclusions and view her as a silver-spoon-fed princess with a new infatuation. Smith, who turned 26 Nov. 29, has competed in show-jumping equestrian competition for years out of her own pocket and will get some help from her father, who has appointed Don Hawk, Speedway Motorsports Inc.’s vice president of business affairs, who worked with Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Jr. and Action Performance, as her agent to secure funding, but the rest is up to her.
“I have access to my dad’s track and my dad’s name, but those are my only advantages,” she said. “My dad had to do everything he’s done by himself. He does not give me or my brothers any kind of free pass. We have to work for what we want, and that’s the way it’s been my entire life. If I want money, I have to work for it. I’m used to working for what I want. If I didn’t win with the horses, I had to go home and regroup. If I won and got prize money, I could go forward.”
Smith is already going forward – and quickly – in her drag racing education. She has made more than 60 laps in a Super Comp car at Hill’s school – not coincidentally located at zMax Dragway — and Hill hopes to have her up to 200 mph by year’s end. Her teacher couldn’t be more impressed.
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Roy Hill, a former Pro Stock racer-turned drag racing school operator, is impressed with his protégé; “I’ve got a great student here,” he raved. |
“I’ve got a great student here,” he said. “She handles herself wonderfully, and I cannot believe how great she handles the car. We had her out there doing leaves and then to 300 [feet] and then to the eighth-mile, and by the end of her first day, she made three consistent runs to the eighth-mile. I added five pounds of pressure to the tires to let it spin, and when she felt that, she wisely backed up; that’s when I knew I had a driver. There are drivers out here right now in Top Fuel that do not have the feel this girl has today.“She doesn’t like to do anything unless she understands it first. If she understands what I say, she does it. She got that from horses, where she had to know how to make the horse work, and she wants to understand how the cars work: the tires, the transmission, the whole thing. She worked the horses, she towed the horses, she did it all; she even drives an F350.”
Smith has been around auto racing her whole life but fell in love with drag racing at the inaugural NHRA Nationals at her father’s fabulous new zMax Dragway.
“I’ve grown up with racing, and I’ve always enjoyed NASCAR racing, but the first time I went to zMax with my brother Marcus, I fell in love,” she said. “I felt so comfortable. I thought it was beautiful and really loved the people. Everyone has been amazing. The drivers, the crews, and all of their friends have just been so supportive. These have to be the nicest people in the world.
“I’ve grown up around racing, so I’m not completely stupid about it, I just never saw the drag racing part, which makes me so mad. I want everyone else to be here; everyone should come to the drag races. It’s too much fun.”
Pressed for a timetable, Hill speculated that nitro testing could commence as early as the spring and noted that he has an agreement already in place with “a top team” that will bring its car to
Charlotte for her to license in while her car is being built.
“We’re going to go real fast … slow,” explained Hill of his philosophy. “We’ve already had her in three different kinds of cars with solid suspension, four-link with different wheels and tires, and our next step is to put a wing on the car. She’s started cutting lights, but I’m not going to waste our time trying to teach her Super Comp. I’ve talked to John Force about this because obviously he has his daughters out here doing this, and he brought them up through Super Comp and A/Fuel, but I feel like we can skip going to A/Fuel for the simple reason that we have one of the best racetracks in the country to test on. Where John’s girls might have gotten 50 runs in a year, we can do 50 runs in two or three days if we want. We can change the track conditions and advance a whole lot further.
“Everyone keeps asking, ‘When is this gonna happen?’ and my answer is, ‘When it’s time.’ One thing that was explained to me by Bruton was, ‘This is my daughter, and her safety is worth more than anything.’ That’s my first priority. We’re not looking to set the world on fire but to give her a good, safe car every time she goes down the track, whether that’s in my Super Comp car or whatever. Bruton Smith is from the South, and I’ve respected him for a lot of years, but I saw something in Anna Lisa, so I’ve completely funded her driving education out of my pocket so far. Down home, if you take care of the right people, it comes back to you.
“I know she wants to drive the Top Fuel car, but not once has she told me she wants to do it right now. She knows she has a lot to learn, and it means a lot to me not to pushed or be aggravated about when she can drive Top Fuel. It will be when I, when we, when the whole team decides.”
Smith is in no great hurry and is going to great lengths to prove the commitment and sincerity of her efforts.
“
Roy has 120 percent of my time and my attention,” she said. “
Roy has a reputation for being tough on his students, but I’m not afraid to tell
Roy I don’t understand something. He can yell or do whatever he wants, but I’ll make him repeat something 15 times if that’s what it takes for me to understand it. I could be staging the car, and if something’s not right, I’m calling time out. I think he respects that.
“I really want to do this, and in time, I hope to really be a competitor. If I didn’t think that I could, I wouldn’t be doing this. I don’t plan to do this for just a year or two. I don’t want to go out there just to do it like I’m shopping. I’m serious about this. I don’t really think I have anything to prove, but I have confidence in myself and in
Roy that I will be good at this. Once we’re out there and everything has developed and people see we’re doing this the right way with our own sponsors, I think that kind of talk will go away.”
Smith will rely on her one-horsepower experience to compete in the world of 7,000 horsepower and thinks her experience in equestrian competition will pay off in many ways.
“I’ve ridden horses since I was 4 and traveled all over the world to compete,” she said, “so I know what it’s like to be gone from home for long periods. I’ve been competing my entire life – against both men and women – and I know how it is to go from hero to zero. In many ways, show jumping is amazingly similar to drag racing. We even have a team aspect to our jumping, so I’m familiar with that. I get it.
“Nothing has surprised me or scared me,” she added. “
Roy keeps me well-informed, and driving the car is even better than I thought it was going to be. My dad is being very supportive and is very excited. I think he wasn’t so sure that his little girl was going to want to drive one of these cars. My brothers — Marcus, David, and Scott – are all very excited, too.”
With his young protégé improving with every outing and the business and technical aspects beginning to come into focus, Hill is excited, too.
“Daddy’s given his blessing, and it’s Don Hawk’s job to find the sponsors and my job to make a driver out of her and be prepared to do this,” he said. “We have Marcus’ blessing, and I can’t say enough for what Marcus has done at zMax Dragway and Lowe’s Motor Speedway. The more I’m around him, the more I respect him and understand that they’re real racers and they know how to make fans and drivers and sponsors feel very welcome.”
On the personnel front, Hill would only say that he has “one of the greatest there ever was coming in to meet her and see what he thinks and help form the team. Those decisions will be up to Don Hawk and Bruton and Marcus. I’m sure she will have the best.”
