Sunday’s Hickory Farms 200 Presented by Federated Car Care was a wild ride for Brad Smith and his No. 26 Ford Taurus in the ARCA RE/MAX Series.

This was the first one-day event of the season, and Smith had assistance from both of his co-crew chiefs, Jeff Smith and Phil Silardi. The team had hoped for a stellar performance at their home track, but at the end of the day, they were very happy with 20th place.

While the field was under caution just before lap 50, Brad felt something go wrong in the car. “Something’s wrong with the transmission,” said Brad, pulling off the track momentarily. “The car’s not under power. We lost low gear.” The team lost a lap getting re-fired, and went a second lap down while getting back up to speed.
Then the real trouble began, when rookie Garrett Liberty rear-ended Brad on the back straightaway. The team called Brad into the pits to inspect the rear of the car and found that the damage was more than cosmetic. The battery was falling out of the battery cage.

It took only 12 laps to fix the damage and Brad re-started the race on lap 85, only 14 laps down.
The team recovered well enough to finish the lap 20th, 20 laps down to winner Ken Schrader.

The next race on the ARCA RE/MAX schedule is May 27 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.