Halpin Smith beats the boys in Little Rock

LITTLE ROCK, AR (June 19, 1999) – Elizabeth Halpin Smith of Baton Rouge, LA made history on the O’Reilly’s SUPR tour when she became the first female to ever win a feature race. I-30 Speedway was the site of this historic event on a night that saw Elizabeth garner the GRT Top Qualifier award, start from the pole, and then dominate the feature winning by half a straightaway over Eddie Taylor and Wade Cleveland. The win proved to be a very popular one with the large I-30 Speedway fans and a large crowd gathered around the Halpin Carpets trailer following the race. Halpin Smith summed it afterwards, “It was awesome, I mean every lap, every lap, I was telling myself just calm down, be smooth because I know I can do this.”

Eddie Taylor started alongside of Elizabeth but was unable to get the jump on the green and quickly fell into line with Wade Cleveland pressuring him right from the start. As the battle for second heated up, Halpin Smith was able to edge away, building a solid lead over the field. The race was slowed by just one caution and Elizabeth was able to expertly work her way through lapped traffic and was never seriously challenged on her way to the 40-lap feature victory. Elizabeth praised her crew for making the necessary changes to her GRT to pull off the win. “They just changed a few key things that we had been talking about, and I changed a few things the way I was driving.”

Eddie Taylor, who failed to qualify for the feature the night before, was happy with his second place run. “We did good last time we was here and this is about the first time we done good again. We changed it a bunch today.”

Wade Cleveland finished third despite all his efforts to move by Taylor early in the race. These efforts were unsuccessful, as he then had to shift his attention toward David Ashley who continually pressured him on the low side. “I think he was trying to run into the corner and crowd me and I could hear him.” But he felt that he could edge away on the straightaways. “Ashley just run a good clean race.”

Duke Whiseant, who won the 20-lap feature the night before, was never able to mount a serious challenge as he fought a loose car all night. He started 6th and moved up to 4th before fading back to 6th.

Twenty-nine Late Models were on hand and the heat winners were Cleveland, Keith Craft, Halpin Smith, Taylor and Duke Whiseant while the Last Chance wins went to Rob Litton and Eric Conner. Ronny Adams put in a show early on as he moved up 12 positions to garner a top ten finish and earned the Lloyd Wild Jr. Logging Hard Charger award for his efforts.


Official Results:
1. Elizabeth Halpin Smith
2. Eddie Taylor
3. Wade Cleveland
4. David Ashley
5. Jay Blair
6. Duke Whiseant
7. Terry Henson
8. Marlon Wild
9. Ronny Adams
10. Keith Craft
11. Jon Mitchell
12. Steve Latson
13. Tommy Surret
14. David Yarbrough
15. Troy Schaberg
16. Dave Siegert
17. Shawn Blees
18. Eric Conner
19. Chuck McGinty
20. Dennis Duncan
21. Mike Bowers
22. Rob Litton