Mark Smith (American racing driver)

This article is about the American racing driver. For the British driver, see Mark Smith (British racing driver). For the Pennsylvanian racing driver, see Mark Smith (Pennsylvanian racing driver).

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	(1967-04-10) April 10, 1967 (age 58) Portland, Oregon
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]

Formula Super Vee: Smith leading Groff at the 1988 Grand Prix of Cleveland

Indy Lights: Smith qualifying at Phoenix International Raceway 1991

CART: Smith driving for Arciero at the 1993 Long Beach Grand Prix

Career

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]

Racing record

Career summary

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 (HF)	Fossi	1	1	0	1	13	7th
2023	Emerald Cup (HF)	Fossi	5	4	2	5	62	1st
	Crossflow Cup (HF)		1	1	0	1	11	12th
2024	Emerald Cup (HF)	Fossi	9	8	9	8	107	1st
	Crossflow Cup (HF)		8	2	2	8	74	1st
Sources:[3][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55]

Formula Super Vee

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	Rank	Points
1988	Dave White Motorsports	PHX Ret	LBH 5	DAL 6	IRP 6	MIL 6	DET Ret	NIA 7	CLE 5	MEA 1	MOH 10	ROA 2	NAZ 5	STP Ret	6th	108[56]
1989	Ralt America	PHX 4	DAL 3	IRP 1*	MIL 1*	CLE 3	DEM 1	ATL 1*	MOH 1*	ROA 4	NAZ Ret	STP 3			1st	169[57]

Formula Pacific

Year	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Rank	Points
1989	Graeme Lawrence Autosport	BAY 4	BAY 3	PUK 3	PUK 3	MAN 3	MAN 2	WIG Ret	WIG 2	TIM 4	TIM 2	4th	39[58]

New Zealand Grand Prix

Year	Team	Car	Qualifying	Main race
1989	Graeme Lawrence Autosport	Swift DB4 - Ford	5th	3rd
1991	Graeme Lawrence Autosport	Swift DB4 - Toyota	1st	Ret

CART Indy Lights

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	MOH 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	MOH 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	MOH 7	NAZ 5	LAG 14			7th	74

CART

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	INDY DNQ	MIL	DET 27	POR 29	CLE 15	TOR 23	MIC	NHA	ROA 24	VAN 22	MOH 19	NAZ 12	LAG 17	22nd	8	[59]
1994	Walker	SRF 21	PHX DNS	LBH 25	INDY DNQ	MIL 24	DET 14	POR 16	CLE 22	TOR 30	MIC 5	MOH 20	NHA 12	VAN 8	ROA 26	NAZ 12	LAG 14	19th	17	[60]

Film and photography

Smith has produced a number of short films including Two Balloons, Denmark and A House, A Home.^[61][62][63] He is the co-author of two photography books The Powder Road and Österlandet.^[64][65] Smith is a graduate of the University of Oregon.^[66]