News Director 
Story By: SHAWN BROUSE / WILLIAMS GROVE SPEEDWAY – MECHANICSBURG, PA – Williams Grove Speedway will again present the biggest race of the Pennsylvania Speedweek Series this Friday night, June 30 at 7:30 pm when it hosts the Pennsy Supply 35th annual Mitch Smith Memorial for 410 sprint cars.
Known for decades as The Crown Jewel of Speedweek, the Mitch Smith Memorial will pay a hefty $20,000 to win out of a total purse worth nearly $50,000.
The Pennsy Supply Mitch Smith Memorial honors the late, great Richard “Mitch” Smith of Linglestown who succumbed to a massive heart attack in 1988, some 10 years after retiring.
Smith left the sport in 1978 after a four-decade long career wherein he scored 27 sprint car wins and nine super modified victories at Williams Grove alone to go along with 179 overall checkered flags.
Time trials will set the starting grids for the Friday Smith Memorial with the main event going 30-laps in distance.
The fastest driver in qualifying time trials will earn the $300 Fast Tees Fast Time Award, courtesy of Fast Tees Screenprinting of Thompsontown.
The Smith Memorial will be another race in the 2023 Hoosier Diamond Series at the track.
The special speedweek event will be a stand-alone sprint car program, highlighting the speedweek 410 sprint cars.
Fireworks will also be part of the Independence Day holiday weekend show.
Adult general admission for the race is set at $30 with youth ages 13 – 20 admitted for $15. Kids ages 12 and under are always admitted for FREE at Williams Grove Speedway.
Pennsy Supply is a manufacturer of aggregate, asphalt, sand and concrete products while also providing construction services.
With locations across North and Central Pennsylvania and Delaware, the 100-plus year old business is headquartered in Harrisburg.
First run in 1989, Stevie Smith won the very first Mitch Smith Memorial before returning for wins again in 2012 and 2014.
No driver owns more wins in the speedweek race than six-time event champion Lance Dewease.
Brent Marks is the defending race champion.
Among others, previous winners have included Joey Allen, Alan Krimes, Daryn Pittman, Trey Starks, Don Kreitz Jr. Fred Rahmer, Greg Hodnett and Danny Dietrich.
Williams Grove Honors Career, Impact & Legacy Of Mitch Smith Friday
When Williams Grove Speedway gets down to action on Friday night, it will do so for the 35th year in a row in honor of a famed sprint car great, the late Mitch Smith of Linglestown.
The oval will host the Pennsy Supply 35th annual Mitch Smith Memorial as part of Pennsylvania Speedweek on June 30 at 7:30 pm.
And the race to honor Smith will pay a lucrative $20,000 to win, an increase of $5,000 over last year, out of the largest total speedweek purse to be posted in all 2023 series events to go along with the largest amount to win.
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 35th annual Mitch Smith Memorial on Friday night.
Brent Marks is the defending winner of the prestigious Mitch Smith Memorial.
The Myerstown driver wired the field to claim the 2022 event.
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.
