Quite a bit has changed in sprint car racing over the last 44 years, from drivers to teams to tracks to engines to tires to just about everything imaginable. 

One thing hasn’t changed, though: Danny Smith keeps winning sprint car races. 

After scoring his first win in 1975, Smith has continued to win at least one race every season since. The 2015 National Sprint Car Hall of Fame inductee recently earned his first win of the 2018 season on April 20 at Crossville Speedway in Tennessee with the United Sprint Car Series (USCS), extending his win streak for another year, which makes 44 consecutive years he has visited victory lane.

“Over the years, the more it continues, I do look at it and think about it more,” Smith said. “My biggest fear in racing is probably not being able to win one again. It’s another notch on my belt and something that I am very proud of. It’s always good to win, especially early in the season. To finally get that first one of the year, hopefully, will make the second one a bit easier.”

My win streak continues. Parked it in crossville T n tonite

— Danny Smith (@4DannySmith) April 21, 2018

The streak began for Smith as a teenager at Lawrenceburg Speedway in his home state of Indiana, which at the time was a quarter-mile bullring. He was piloting a car for his father back then, as he was cutting his teeth in the sport. 

Smith won the track championship at Lawrenceburg in 1976. The veteran driver would pick up a World of Outlaws Craftsman Sprint Car Series win at Lawrenceburg nearly 30 years later in 2004. He also has won with the Arctic Cat All Star Circuit of Champions at the ‘Burg, which is now a state-of-the-art, high-banked 3/8 mile.

Smith has racked up wins with numerous series and at tracks from coast to coast as well as in Australia. Among his biggest wins are the 1985 Gold Cup Race of Champions at Silver Dollar Speedway in California. Smith also claimed the Grand Annual Sprintcar Classic at Sungold Stadium Premier Speedway in Warnambool, Australia, a record six times. 

Smith has 33 wins in his career with the All Stars and 10 with the World of Outlaws Craftsman Sprint Car Series as well as picking up victories with numerous other series and sanctioning bodies.

“I’ve been pretty blessed,” he shared. “There aren’t a whole lot of people who can say they’ve won in all the different places we have. I’ve met a lot of great people along the way, and that is one of the main things I’ll always remember.”

Nowadays, Smith often competes alongside drivers whose fathers and even grandfathers used to race against Smith earlier in his career. Case in point, he raced against Bob Kinser, the patriarch of the Kinser clan; Steve Kinser, Bob's son and a 20-time World of Outlaws champion; and Kraig Kinser, who is a third-generation driver. 

Smith fondly recalls the "old days," when he was driving for car owners and didn’t have to worry about the business side of the sport, like he does now, operating his own team.

“Some of the kids racing now weren’t even born in my ‘heyday,'” Smith said. “It seemed like there was a lot less pressure in the old days. I think the pressure I get now is that I own my own car and have to pay the bills. You gotta make some money to keep going. I have a few small sponsors and products sponsors and everything adds up to keep it on the road and keep going. The ‘70s, ‘80s, and ‘90s were definitely the most fun days for me, but we're still having fun now, though.”

Locked an loaded for Mansfield pic.twitter.com/uTgPAfeBlu

— Danny Smith (@4DannySmith) April 25, 2018

A few years back, Smith adjusted his schedule to predominately run on tracks smaller than a half-mile. Calling Chillicothe, Ohio, home for the last number of years, Atomic Speedway has become his adopted home track. During the summer months, he mainly races in Ohio, a state dotted with a plethora of tracks that host sprint car racing.

“Some of it was budget,” he explained of his shift in schedule. “I don't have the budget to run with the Outlaws on half-mile tracks. I'm getting a little older and the smaller tracks are a little slower, in case you get in trouble. I can't hang on quite as good as I used to. It’s a lot more fun for me to run the short tracks. I think the racing is a lot better on smaller tracks.”

Smith has spent the majority of the early part of this season traveling to the Southeast to race with the USCS. He opened the season with that series in Florida and has also raced with them in Mississippi, North Carolina, and Tennessee. He sits fourth in points, despite not racing all of their events. Toward the end of the season, he will travel south again to race with the series.

“They take good care of me,” he noted of why he enjoys racing with USCS. “They put on a good show and pay decent money. In the spring and the fall, when it’s raining up north, they are racing down there. There are a few tracks down that way that I have never been to and I want to get to. We’ll kind of pick and choose where we go, where we feel like we’ll have the most fun and have a chance to make some money.”

For the last several years, when the question of retirement comes up, Smith always says he will continue racing as long as he can keep the win streak alive. That is the mantra he’ll now be able to use for at least another year.

“It’s easy to say, but I guess I’ll have to answer that question if we go a year without winning one,” Smith said. “For now, I guess it means I have to race again next year.”