Murray County

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  • Chatsworth’s Jeff Smith, a Dalton native, won both the Crate Late Model and Limited Late Model races Saturday at Murray County’s North Georgia Speedway. Smith was the first driver to do so since new promoter Jason Jones changed the track’s rules to allow drivers to compete in multiple classes in one night.

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August 14, 2012

Passing all his classes

Jeff Smith wins twice at North Ga. Speedway

Devin Golden devingolden@daltoncitizen.com

Competing in two separate classes — and two separate cars — presents its share of challenges to dirt-track drivers.

But Chatsworth’s Jeff Smith did not just race twice at North Georgia Speedway this past Saturday. He won twice.

Smith, who’s originally from Dalton, became the first driver to pick up two wins in two different classes since the Murray County track’s new promoter, Jason Jones, changed the rules to allow drivers to compete twice in the same night.

Smith won the Limited Late Model feature with the A19 MasterSbilt car and the Crate Late Model with his 17S Warrior car. He took home a total of $1,800 in winnings, with $1,200 coming from the Crate race, which included a $200 bonus because it was the class with the most cars that night.

He came in ahead of Brad Coffee and Craig Burrows in Crate, then took the checkered flag in front of Todd Morrow and Bobby Mayse in Limited. Overall, “not too bad,” Smith said.

“It wasn’t all me because neither one of the cars were mine,” he added. “I sold off all my stuff and drive for Randall Hill (Racing) now. And I couldn’t have done it without my crew chief, (Michael) ‘Fatback’ (Hammontree).”

When Jones took over as the speedway’s promoter last month, the one-class-max rule was still in effect, as were other hindrances to Smith’s dominance and versatility.

Jones said no more to it all.

“I opened it up this year to where you can run two classes, but cannot run the same car,” Jones said.

Neither Randall Hill, Jones nor Smith knew of anyone previously who had won in two classes at the track, and the latter two have been around the speedway for at least a few years. Jones was a flag man there for six years, and Smith, 34, first raced there when he was 16 years old, 18 years ago.

 

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