The NASCAR Hall of Fame opens on Tuesday in Charlotte. The collection of NASCAR history is enormous and impressive. 

 

     One of the exhibits showcases racing on Daytona’s Beach Course which actually pre-dates NASCAR. From 1936 until Daytona International Speedway was built in 1959, racing pioneers raced north on the beach, through rough and rutted turns and then south on highway A1A in the quest for victory.

 

     The car featured in the exhibit is a 1939 Ford that pioneer Louis Smith raced in the modified division on the beach. 

 

     Smith, a devout Baptist, left no question about her faith with the phrase “Jesus Loves You” right on the hood. She worked before her death in 2006 to restore the car to its original condition and design. 

 

     The Greenville native was known to many as the “first lady of stock car racing” competing before NASCAR and in sanctioned races through 1952. Her competitors called her a “Good Ol’ Gal.” On September 11, 1949 she scored her best finish at Langhorne, Pa. in NASCAR competition.

 

     Most of her racing was on the bullrings in the south where she won 38 times.

 

     In 1947 she went to Florida with the intention of watching the beach race at Daytona. She could not stand being on the sidelines and on-the-spot entered the families brand-new Ford in the contest.

 

      Unfortunately for her, she was in a wreck and flipped the family car. The photo of the wreck made all the newspapers and her “racing in Daytona” secret was out before she arrived back home to explain her entry in the race.

 

     Smith was the first women inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame (1999) and has her place, complete with her “Jesus Loves You” message in the new NASCAR Hall of Fame.