Louise Smith, 89; Stock-Car Racer Was First Woman in Hall of Fame

Louise Smith, a pioneer of stock-car racing and the first woman inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame, has died. She was 89.

Smith died Saturday and a memorial service was held Monday in Greenville, S.C., where she spent most of her life, according to the Westville Funeral Home in Greenville.

She suffered from cancer and had been in hospice care in Anderson, S.C., one of her nieces, Dora Owens, told The Greenville News.

Known as a fearless, hard-charging driver, Smith competed in the 1940s and ‘50s alongside the men who were the early stars of NASCAR, the National Assn. for Stock Car Auto Racing.

She won 38 races in various classes of modified cars over an 11-year stretch while barnstorming tracks from Florida to Canada, and survived a spree of crashes as well.

Smith was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in Talladega, Ala., in 1999 as “one of the true pioneers of early stock-car racing.”

“She was one of the most excited inductees we’ve ever had,” said Jim Freeman, the facility’s executive director. “It just thrilled her.”

Smith last visited the hall of fame in 2004, when drag-racing legend Shirley Muldowney became the second woman inducted, Freeman said. The third, Janet Guthrie, will be inducted next week.

A native of Barnesville, Ga., Smith grew up in a family of mechanics and was drawn to cars before she was a teenager. She was known as one of the fastest drivers in the area, one who enjoyed outrunning the police.

In 1946, promoter Bill France Sr. -- who would spearhead the formation of NASCAR the following year -- came to Greenville and sought a female competitor to attract patrons to the track.

Someone mentioned Smith, who had never even seen a race. But she agreed to do it, and finished third in a modified 1939 Ford coupe.

The next year she borrowed her husband’s new maroon Ford and said she was going on vacation. She headed to Daytona Beach, Fla., entered a race and wrecked the car. When she came home to break the news to her husband, Noah, he had already seen it in the local paper, complete with a photo of the wreck.

Smith drove for nearly another decade, despite several other accidents that left her with broken bones and other injuries.

“I was just born to be wild,” she told the Baltimore Sun in 1997. “I tried to be a nurse, a pilot and a beautician and couldn’t make it as any of them. But from the moment I hit the racetrack, it was exactly what I wanted.”

She mixed with such legendary drivers as Curtis Turner, Lee Petty, Buddy Shuman and Buck Baker, usually competing for first-place money of $100 to $150.

“It was hard on me,” Smith told the Associated Press in 1998. “Them men were not liking it to start with, and they wouldn’t give you an inch.”

She quit racing in 1956, but later returned to sponsor cars for young drivers.