ROSSBURG, Ohio (June 4) — To say 2000 was a life-changing year for veteran crew chief Gary Winger is an understatement.

January marked the birth of Gary and his wife Lynn's son Ashton. And June took Gary to Eldora Speedway’s victory stage with Hall of Fame driver Freddy Smith after the $100,000 Dream.

It comes full circle 25 years later this week at the legendary half-mile oval with Ashton entering Dream XXXI in a throwback graphics scheme paying tribute to Smith’s 2000 GRT Race Car.

Ashton and his mother hatched the idea not long after attending Smith’s funeral in October 2023, a way to pay tribute to the beloved driver and make a memorable connection between a 28-year-old Gary’s early career success and the 25-year-old driver rising through the ranks of Dirt Late Model racing’s best racers.

Winger’s tribute car comes with an array of merchandise celebrating the No. 00’s revival. The youngster's decision to send proceeds from sales of those items at Eldora and beyond to the Smith family — Freddy’s wife Naomi has been in failing health — is what strikes Gary Winger most.

“I’ll be honest with you, for me, it's more special that my kid thinks enough of the Smith family to do what he's doing,” the elder Winger said in the upper pits at Eldora before Wednesday’s FloRacing Night in America event.

Winger paused with a crack in his voice.

“It’s tough to make it in this deal as it is, and for him to be willing to donate all of his proceeds from his T-shirt stuff to something like that, it makes me think I raised him right,” Winger said. "It was special winning that race and all that, but I don't know, I think being older looking at that, I think I'm probably about as proud of that as I am being a part of winning the race.”

For Winger, Smith’s second Dream victory — the North Carolina native and Knoxville, Tenn., resident won Eldora's inaugural six-figure payday six years earlier — is unforgettable.

As the 35th fastest qualifier in 2000 among 155 entries, Smith landed on the pole position for the fifth heat via the track’s much-ballyhooed inversion system. It was after time trials that Smith instructed his crew to remove the 440 c.i. engine and install the smaller, lighter and lower-powered 358 c.i. powerplant.

Winger, Jimmy Cabral and crew members did as Smith told them, but Winger thought it was a gamble at a daunting racetrack where teams typically brought their biggest and fastest engines.

“Coming to this place,” Winger said, “we thought we needed everything we had.”

Smith’s bet? That the track would be slicker by the fifth heat, and a lower-powered engine would carry him to a preliminary victory that would give him an outside front-row starting spot for the 100-lapper.

Smith was spot on. But there was still work to do, Winger recalled.

“Right before the feature — I can't remember if it was me or Jimmy — but one of us was crawling around under the back of the car and the fuel cell brackets were broken. The fuel cell was about to fall out,” Winger said. "I remember that not very long before the feature I was up under there welding on the fuel cell mounts.”

(“We didn’t do a lot of smart things back then,” Winger added wryly).

Smith ended up leading all 100 laps to not only give GRT Race Cars its first major Eldora victory, but a podium sweep with fellow GRT drivers Ray Cook and Wendell Wallace chasing Smith across the finish line for chassis builder Joe Garrison.

“I'd been coming to Eldora at that time for about four or five years and never really had any kind of success,” Winger said, “so that was pretty memorable for me.”

Winger pulls his phone out of his pocket and swipes through some historic photos, finding one of the victory lane celebration. Could a visit to victory lane with Ashton be in the family’s future?

It would be a remarkable connection for Smith and Winger, whose red, white and blue lookalike Christenberry Farms car is touring Eldora’s high banks 25 years later. The family connections are already taut.

"Ashton was born in Georgia and I guess three days after he was born we moved him up to Knoxville because I was already up there working for Freddy at the time,” Gary Winger said. “They took to him like he was their own kid. Freddy’s wife Miss Naomi, she's the sweetest person I've ever met.

“(Ashton) had Freddy Smith onesies, and anytime there was anything that would fit a a newborn, Miss Naomi made sure Ashton had it.

“They were all the time checking on him because we all lived — we all had our own places — but we all lived on (Clayton) Christenberry’s farm, and, man, it was just like a big family there, you know? We all rode to work together, me and Freddy and Jimmy, we all rode to work together every day. That was a fun time.”

The Wingers attended Smith’s funeral nearly two years ago and paid their condolences to family members and loved ones, including son Jeff and Naomi.

“It's funny, she remembered Ashton. Like, she has trouble remembering some stuff, but she remembered Ashton,” Gary Winger said. “It's just weird what people remember. I'd say that's about the time that the plan (for the tribute car) was developed by Lynn and Ashton.”

Smith — fans knew him as the Southern Gentleman, but Winger said they called him either Fred or “Five-time” (a call back to his five Dirt Track World Championship victories) — was mostly retired from racing by the time Ashton Winger began competing, but he always kept up with the youngster.

"I know Ashton would not have remembered it, but even later on, when Ashton got bigger and like when Ashton was racing bandoleros, Freddy would actually call” to check on results, Gary Winger recalled. “And even when Ashton started racing Dirt Late Models — not the greatest memories, but when he got turned over at I-75 (Raceway in Sweetwater, Tenn., in 2022), Freddie called me on the way home, making sure he was OK.

“Freddy's been there literally from Day 5, since we brought him to Tennessee, Freddy had been around him, and (he) even interacted with them when Ashton got into his teenage years.”

Gary’s family kept him in the dark about the Smith-inspired graphics scheme on the team’s one-off Fusion Race Car.

“It was honestly a surprise to me,” he said. “Ashton had said he was going to put a body on for Eldora and I didn't really think much about it. I came in the shop and it started off as all white like we normally run, so I didn't think nothing about it.

“Then a couple days later I came into the shop and he had the sides taped up there to lay the wrap on it, and that's honestly when I found out about it. I was like, ‘Man that's pretty cool.’ He had the wrap taped up ready to put it on and that's when I realized what all was going on so they kept it hid from me pretty good.”

The 25-year connection couldn’t be more meaningful.

“It looks really good,” Winger added. “I guess the only thing that we missed on — I actually don't think it looks bad — but we had blue floppers on the car from the Dream. But everything else, man, I'm telling you, is really close, and I'm pretty proud of it.”