JOE HABINA
Special Correspondent
Wrestling and auto racing don’t have much in common, except if you consider the professional sports’ appeal with a similar demographic.
For recent high school graduate Ben Smith, the two couldn’t have been more different. Coming from a “wrestling family, “Smith said, he grew up understanding more about takedowns, pins and reversals than springs, rotors and valves.
Though he couldn’t do much more than change a car’s oil at the time, his loyalties quickly transferred from wrestling to racing when Smith got his first look inside an automobile engine four years ago.
Now he has emerged as one of the lead racers in the Fast and Furious Fours division at Concord Motorsport Park.
A June graduate of Central Cabarrus High, Smith, 18, will start classes at UNC Charlotte in the fall, majoring in mechanical engineering and minoring in motorsports engineering.
The former all-state wrestler wants to make racing a career.
Instantly enthralled
By his freshman year at Central, Smith already had made a name for himself as a light-to-middle-weight wrestler. The following summer, he represented North Carolina at the USA Wrestling national freestyle and Greco-Roman championships in North Dakota.Shortly afterward, he visited the backyard auto shop owned by the Measmer family, friends of the Smiths. Bobby Measmer Jr. was a few years older than Smith, but the two had remained friends since playing youth soccer together.
Bobby Jr. and his father, Bobby Measmer Sr., both raced at Concord. Bobby Jr. raced in the Hornets division, which transformed into the Fast and Furious Fours division for the 2006 season.
Smith was instantly enthralled with racing. While he was assisting the Measmers, Bobby Sr. promised him they would help him build his own car.
Father was nervous
Smith bought what used to be a Honda Prelude at a junkyard for a few hundred bucks. He started racing it shortly after he turned 16 years old, finishing out the 2004 season at Concord.
“I was extremely nervous, “said his father, Jeff Smith, who’s older son, Brad, was also a standout wrestler at Central.
“No. 1, I didn’t want him to get hurt, “Jeff Smith said. “No. 2, I didn’t want (him to wreck the car and) all of his hard work to go to waste in one night.”
By the next season, Ben Smith was learning more and more about cars and racing. Meanwhile, as a junior wrestler, he won the 4A West Regional for the first time and finished in the top six at the state meet.
But it just didn’t mean as much to him as what he was doing at the race track.
“Instead of being gung-ho for wrestling, I did it just to do it, “Smith admitted. “I continued to do it because it would have been weird not to do it.”
Job supports racing
Last summer, Smith finished second in the Hornets division. Bobby Measmer Jr. was the division champion.During his senior year, Smith continued to excel at wrestling. He was the regional runner-up, finished sixth in the state and was named the ME-CA 6 Conference wrestler of the year.
During his final semester, after the wrestling season, Smith diligently worked his sandblasting and painting job after school so he could earn money to support racing.
He recently purchased a 1980 Chevy van to haul the trailer his grandfather Vance Holland of Concord bought for him.
He set up a bank account in the name of Ben Smith Racing so that he can account for all his racing winnings and expenses. A small-scale sponsor puts a sum of money into the preseason coffer.
Having a good year
So far, he’s having such a good year at Concord that he said his winnings can sustain the cost of running the car. Driving a new car this year — which he purchased from another driver — Smith has won five of the nine races he has entered and has finished in the top four in the other four.
After years of tutelage under the Measmers, Smith is now self-supporting. He drives his race car to and from the track and serves as pretty much his own crew. If he ever gets in any trouble at the track, he said, other crews are always nearby in the pit area to help.
Like most drivers, Smith said, he wants to move up in divisions. He’s got his eye on a limited late-model stock car that he may buy and drive in the future.
Ideally, he said, he would like to drive professionally in one of the big leagues. Realistically, he would like to take his future college degree and apply it toward racing’s technical aspect, though he doesn’t plan to give up driving on the side.
Racing has become such a passion for him, deciding to make it a career is a decision he doesn’t have to wrestle with.
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