Loading AI tools
American former racing driver (born 1967) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mark Smith (born April 10, 1967) is a former American racing driver who competed in the CART IndyCar Series. Smith won the 1989 United States Formula Super Vee Championship and was the 1991 Indy Lights National Championship runner-up.
Mark Smith | |
---|---|
Nationality | American |
Born | Portland, Oregon | April 10, 1967
Retired | 1994 |
CART Championship Car | |
Years active | 1993–1994 |
Teams | Arciero Racing Walker Racing |
Starts | 26 |
Previous series | |
1988–1989 1989 1990–1992 | Formula Super Vee Formula Pacific Indy Lights |
Championship titles | |
1989 | Formula Super Vee |
Awards | |
1989 1990 | Formula Pacific Rookie of the Year[1] Indy Lights Rookie of the Year[2] |
Smith entered karting competition at the age of 14 and won 6 championships in multiple IKF divisions.[3] In 1985 he moved up to Formula Ford scoring 4 race wins in two seasons and then advanced to Formula Super Vee.[3]
After winning the 1989 United States Formula Super Vee Championship[4] with 5 wins and 4 poles,[5] Smith raced in Indy Lights from 1990 to 1992, finishing 3rd in series points his rookie year,[6] and 2nd in 1991[7] capturing 3 wins and 5 poles along the way.[8]
In December 1992, it was announced that Smith would make his racing debut in CART / Indy Car, signing with Arciero for the 1993 season.[9] Arciero, being a sparsely budgeted team, fielded a year old, 1992 Penske PC-21/Chevrolet B, for 13 of the 16 scheduled races.[10][11]
Smith scored two top 10 finishes in the first three races of the season.[12][13] At the fourth round, the Indianapolis 500, Smith qualified twice for the race but was bumped from the field.[14] His second bumping at the hands of Didier Theys happened just 6 minutes before the end of qualifications that year, an outcome that added to the Speedway myth about The Curse of the Smiths.[15]
Smith continued to show good pace his rookie year with several top 10 qualifying performances.[16][17][18] At the Grand Prix of Portland, the 7th round of the season, Smith qualified the Arciero PC-21/Chevy B 6th on the grid between the Lolas' of Danny Sullivan and Mario Andretti.[19] Early in the race while challenging for 5th Smith retired with a broken gearbox.[20] The Penske transverse gearbox at the back of the PC-21 plagued Arciero during the 1993 season. After the Grand Prix of Portland in June, Smith retired from the next five races in a row with gearbox problems.[21] Of the 13 races Arciero entered in 1993 the team finished four races, scoring points in three of those four races.[22][23][24][25]
Mark qualified for the 1994 Indianapolis 500 and was bumped from the field by Bobby Rahal. With 14 minutes remaining in the final session, Smith made a bold attempt to qualify an ill-handling T93 Lola back-up car. His warm up lap of 221.8 mph was fast enough to make the race. On the following lap he crashed heavily into turn two.[26]
Smith's best IndyCar finish was a 5th place at the 1994 Michigan 500.[27]
Season | Series | Team | Races | Wins | Poles | Podiums | Points | Position | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1985 | SCCA Formula Ford | P1 Racing | 7 | 1 | 4 | N/A | N/A | |||||
1986 | SCCA Formula Ford | Evergreen | 9 | 3 | 2 | 5 | N/A | N/A | ||||
1987 | Formula Super Vee | Wilbur Bunce Engineering | 7 | N/A | N/A | |||||||
1988 | Formula Super Vee | Dave White Motorsports | 13 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 108 | 6th | ||||
1989 | Formula Pacific | Graeme Lawrence Autosport | 10 | 0 | 2 | 7 | 39 | 4th | ||||
New Zealand Grand Prix | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | N/A | 3rd | ||||||
Formula Super Vee | Ralt America | 11 | 5 | 4 | 8 | 169 | 1st | |||||
1990 | Indy Lights | Ralt America | 2 | 1 | 2 | 128 | 3rd | |||||
Lanford | 12 | 0 | 0 | 2 | ||||||||
1991 | New Zealand Grand Prix | Graeme Lawrence Autosport | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | N/A | Ret | ||||
Indy Lights | Evergreen | 12 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 103 | 2nd | |||||
1992 | Indy Lights | Evergreen | 14 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 134 | 7th | ||||
1993 | CART IndyCar | Arciero | 13 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 22nd | ||||
1994 | CART IndyCar | Walker | 16 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 17 | 19th | ||||
2022 | SVRA Formula Ford (PCF) | Dave McMillan Racing | 6 | 2 | 2 | 6 | 96 | 3rd | ||||
Emerald Cup | Fossi | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 13 | 7th | |||||
2023 | Emerald Cup | Fossi | 5 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 62 | 1st | ||||
Crossflow Cup | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 11 | 12th | ||||||
(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)
Year | Team | Car | Qualifying | Main race |
---|---|---|---|---|
1989 | Graeme Lawrence Autosport | Swift DB4 - Ford | 5th | 3rd |
1991 | Graeme Lawrence Autosport | Swift DB4 - Toyota | 1st | Ret |
Year | Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | Rank | Points |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1990 | Ralt America | PHX 2 |
LBH 2 |
3rd | 128 | ||||||||||||
Lanford | MIL 9 |
DET 11 |
POR 6 |
CLE 4 |
MEA 10 |
TOR 6 |
DEN 9 |
VAN 2 |
MDO 9 |
ROA 3 |
NAZ 5 |
LAG 5 | |||||
1991 | Evergreen | LBH 4 |
PHX 2* |
MIL 7 |
DET 6 |
POR 3 |
CLE 1* |
MEA 5 |
TOR 5 |
DEN 4 |
MDO 2 |
NAZ 8 |
LAG 1* |
2nd | 155 | ||
1992 | Evergreen | PHX 7 |
LBH 11 |
DET 3 |
POR 11 |
MIL 5 |
NHA 11 |
TOR 9 |
CLE 10 |
VAN 1 |
MDO 7 |
NAZ 5 |
LAG 14 |
7th | 74 |
Year | Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | Rank | Points | Ref |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1993 | Arciero | SRF 18 |
PHX 9 |
LBH 10 |
IND DNQ |
MIL | DET 27 |
POR 29 |
CLE 15 |
TOR 23 |
MIC | NHA | ROA 24 |
VAN 22 |
MDO 19 |
NAZ 12 |
LAG 17 |
22nd | 8 | [56] |
1994 | Walker | SRF 21 |
PHX DNS |
LBH 25 |
IND DNQ |
MIL 24 |
DET 14 |
POR 16 |
CLE 22 |
TOR 30 |
MIC 5 |
MDO 20 |
NHA 12 |
VAN 8 |
ROA 26 |
NAZ 12 |
LAG 14 |
19th | 17 | [57] |
Smith has produced a number of short films including Two Balloons, Denmark and A House, A Home.[58][59][60] He is the co-author of two photography books The Powder Road and Österlandet.[61][62] Smith is a graduate of the University of Oregon.[63]
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Every time you click a link to Wikipedia, Wiktionary or Wikiquote in your browser's search results, it will show the modern Wikiwand interface.
Wikiwand extension is a five stars, simple, with minimum permission required to keep your browsing private, safe and transparent.