9/19/20: In a year of short fields, Brad Smith finally gets his well-deserved Top Ten
by Ben Schneider / LASTCAR.info Staff Writer
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This article was originally published at Across the Stripe on September 24, 2020. Since then, Brad Smith has earned an additional three top-ten finishes: a 10th at Berlin in 2022 and a 9th at Springfield in 2025, plus a career-best 8th at Flat Rock in an ARCA Menards Series East race earlier this season.
Despite NASCAR’s recent acquisition of ARCA and ARCA’s subsequent realignment with NASCAR’s K&N Pro Series East and West, the field sizes in this year’s ARCA Menards Series have been smaller than ever.
While the COVID-19 pandemic certainly hasn’t helped matters, the car count for ARCA’s main series hit an all-time low this past weekend at Winchester Speedway. Only 13 cars were on the initial entry list, with Eric Caudell’s late entry bringing the field up to 14 for Saturday’s race. Low race purses combined with high expenses have made it virtually impossible to compete in the series without major financial and manufacturer support.
If there’s a silver lining to these short fields, however, many of the independent drivers and teams that are still able to show up to the track each week have been able to enjoy career-best finishes. Among them is Brad Smith. Smith made his ARCA debut in 1988 and competed in 362 races in the series without scoring a single top-ten finish. On Saturday, in his 363rd, he finally got his first.
Smith’s ninth-place finish is worth celebrating for multiple reasons. The Shelby Township, Michigan, native has continued to persevere through rough circumstances in recent years. In 2015, Smith was injured in a horrifying crash at Talladega Superspeedway, forcing him to sit out the remainder of the season. Three years later, his car owner, longtime ARCA and NASCAR independent James Hylton, was killed in a traffic accident on their way home from Talladega.
The then 49-year-old Smith could have easily decided enough was enough and stepped away from the sport after either of these accidents. Instead, he and much of Hylton’s team regrouped and chose to continue to compete in Hylton’s honor. After tying his previous career-best of 12th earlier this season, Smith, in his words, “got that top-ten monkey off [his] back” at Winchester on Saturday with a ninth-place finish.
Smith’s career-best finish earned him much-deserved praise on social media, while Truck Series driver and NASCAR on NBC analyst Parker Kligerman offered to buy Smith a set of tires for the next ARCA race.
ARCA and NASCAR need more stories like this. Now, at age 51, Smith and his team are still showing up to the track almost every time the ARCA Menards Series holds a race. They continue to persevere in the face of minimal funding and lower-tier equipment. And coming off of Saturday’s feel-good moment, there’s no sign they’ll be stopping any time soon.
