Noah And Louise Smith
A two-year-old Jimmie Day comes home to live with his father.
Noah Smith’s wife was Louise Smith, a nationally renowned stock car driver of the 1940s and 50s. Smith’s Auto Parks/Junkyard back then was a Mecca for local race drivers.
“Between Louise driving cars, Noah selling parts and me living there, well, racing just got in my blood,” Jimmie said.
Louise, who is still going strong today, told us Jimmie could be a real nuisance back then.
“Anybody heading to a race had to make room for J.B. or he would pester you to death,” she said. “But it was hard to turn the little fellow down. We grew quite fond of him and saw him as our own, but I would always call him the little pest. Most of the time he was too dirty to take anywhere. Noah would usually carry him to town for a wash and a haircut.
“Once I wouldn’t let him go to a race in Columbia (South Carolina) because he needed a bath, so he hid under a tarp in the race car. Before we got to the track we stopped to eat and in he walked, saying he hitchhiked. We knew how he got there, but what could we do? We’d get him something to eat and take him on to the races.”
And for a seven year old in 1941, Jimmie Day got around.
“The first race I went to was at Lakewood Speedway in Atlanta,” he said. “I rode with Scoot Reynolds in his new ’41 baby blue Mercury coupe. I was hooked. But I got an ass whipping from my daddy for that. The next week I went to High Point (North Carolina) and got another whipping, but it was worth it. I never got a whipping for staying over at the junkyard, just when I left the state.”
Sixty years later nothing has changed…except for the whippings.
After the second grade, Jimmie bid farewell to this school and the only teacher he ever knew – Mrs. Keith. Photo by Eddie Samples
Jimmie’s evolution into the racing world could be linked to his mother, who died three weeks after he was born in 1934. Her untimely death characterized the early events in his life. His father had seven more at home, so a local hospital kept him until he was two years old. Later, for lack of a place to put him, he began school at age four.
“I remember my teacher Mrs. Keith would hold me in her lap while she would read to the class. When I’d get tired I’d just go to sleep in her arms. She didn’t have children and took a special liking to me, making me a true teacher’s pet. Before she died about 20 years ago, she had asked for me and I kept putting it off until it was too late. That bothers me to this day.”
By the time he graduated from the second grade, Jimmie realized there was more to this school business than sleeping. So he quit. In search of an easier life than what waited at home, he ended up at the Smith’s place.
“My father would tell me to always have his bath water ready each night when he came home or he would tear me up. I would make umpteen trips to the spring, hauling bucket after bucket back up to the house. My brother would come home, steal the water for his own bath, kick my butt if I told, and back I’d go to the spring. That type of crap pointed me to my LaSalle.”