When Cameron Smith didn’t have a race to compete in, he and two friends built a sprint for car owner Lee Kauffman. They finished it in time to finish fifth in the USAC East Coast Sprint Cars race at Grandview Speedway at Bechtelsville, Pennsylvania. It was the best finish ever for Kauffman, who has raced since 2019.
Furthermore, it was the first time Smith had raced Grandview, and he didn’t get to take hot laps.
“The crew said fifth was like a win,” Smith, of Spring Grove, Pennsylvania, said. “That was pretty much the way it felt after we rolled into the pits as the sprints were on the track for warm-ups. The first time ever that I was on the track was when I rolled out for my heat race.”
Typically, Smith races a winged 410 sprint for Rick Lefever. They regularly compete at a trio of Pennsylvania tracks — BAPS Motor Speedway in York Haven, Lincoln Speedway in Abbotstown, and Williams Grove Speedway in Mechanicsburg. Kauffman typically races the wingless sprint, but Smith drove for him during Speedweeks in Florida. However, Kauffman destroyed the car at Bedford Speedway in April. Kauffman was ready to call it a season.
“Lee needed a frame and I knew that Rick had a Triple X chassis he would sell to Lee, so I hooked them up,” said Smith. “Lee had a good engine, torque tube and rear end left from his car. We got the chassis on Thursday and the crew immediately got to work on it.”
Kauffman’s team went from contemplating selling all their spare parts to building a car in a moment’s notice.
“They went from being dejected to getting all pumped up in 24 hours,” Smith said. “They were so excited to be putting a car together to race in two days.”
Despite the on-track success with the new car, Cameron Smith does not know when he will race the wingless sprint for Kaufmann again.
“I would gladly drive his car again if I had a night off from racing the 410 sprint car,” said Smith. “Driving a wingless sprint car is a lot of fun.”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
Photographers
The Outside Groove contributor from Macungie, Pennsylvania, has covered the sport since 2012. Sabo serves as the official track photographer of Grandview Speedway in Bechtelsville, Pennsylvania. Photography is a family ordeal for Sabo. He shoots with his daughter, Abby, at Shellhammer Dirt Track in Shoemakersville, Pennsylvania. At Grandview and other venues Sabo travels to, he and his father, Stephen “Poppa Pepper” Sabo Sr., capture the night’s action with their cameras.
