Al Smith
Alan Carl Smith (born 11th August, 1959 in Market Harborough, Leicestershire, United Kingdom), more commonly known as Al Smith, is a former used car dealer, motorsports team owner and principal (through Al Smith Racing Enterprises), who now works as the Commissioner for the AutoReject World Series.
Early Life
The youngest of six children, Smith was born to World War 2 veteran Corporal Fred Smith and Linda Smith, who was an ambulance driver during the war. Having served within the Royal Armoured Corps himself, the Smith family made their trade as mechanics after the war, and it was in this environment that Al developed a love of cars from a young age. The young Smith worked in the garage from the age of 12, saving up enough that he was able to buy his first car at the age of 16 - a broken-down Ford Zephyr Mark II, which cost him £50. In his free time, Smith then worked on the car over a period of 2 years, restoring it to excellent condition - and acquiring his driver's license in the meantime - before he sold it to a passing car enthusiast for £500.
This experience buoyed the young Smith, who then re-invested the money into effectively starting his own business. Smith would purchase old, mostly broken-down cars, restore them, and then sell them on for a tidy profit. By 1981, Smith opened up his own used car lot on the outskirts of the nearby city of Leicester - a decade later, and he had become one of the most prominent car dealers in the East Midlands, with additional car lots in Nottingham, Derby, Northampton, and Peterborough.
Al Smith Racing Enterprises
Throughout his life, however, Smith's greatest passion was always motor racing, regularly attending races in his youth. From 1980 onwards, Al Smith had always attended the British Grand Prix, cheering for his personal favourite driver, Nigel Mansell. Mansell's struggles to remain with a competitive team through the late 80s and early 90s, culminating in his departure from Formula 1 after 1990, convinced Smith that he could run a racing team far better than any of the people in charge of the various Formula 1 teams at the time.
He finally got his opportunity to put this to the test in the Life Grand Prix Series, when the opportunity presented itself to take over James Davies' eponymous Team James Davies, which Smith restyled as Al Smith Racing Enterprises. Though his preferred driver - Davies himself - would be unavailable due to his move to British Formula 3 at the time, the team quickly produced results, scoring 2 points from a classified 5th place finish at the Life GP of Portugal with Apostolos Alianopoulos at the wheel.
Smith then invested the funds to expand the team to two cars through the 1992 and 1993 seasons, challenging for the title in both seasons with drivers Jan van der Maeyede and Vic Sunset. Although the Life Grand Prix Series would collapse after the 1993 season, and Smith eventually withdrew from its successor, the Rejects-1 World Championship, his connections with sponsors and reputation as a skilled - if brash - team boss, had enabled him to diversify to cover various British national racing series, such as British GT and British Formula 3. This came through the sale of his used car business, which netted Smith £2.5 million when he sold it at the end of 1993.
Al Smith Racing Enterprises would then go on to become one of the household names of British motorsport, winning 3 successive British GT championships from 1998-2000, the 2004 British Formula 3 championship, as well as the 2007 and 2010 World Touring Car Championships. However, rising costs and withdrawal of manufacturer backing from his WTCC effort led to Smith scaling down his team, and eventually passing on management to his eldest son, Roy, in 2016.
AutoReject International
A factor in Smith's decision to sell his racing team was receiving an offer from the newly-formed AutoReject Super Touring series to act as their Sporting Director and Chief Steward. Though uncontrolled spending and unchecked expansion led to the series foundering by mid-2018, Smith enjoyed the work, and applied to continue working within the AutoReject International organisation.
AutoReject International itself encountered grave difficulties in 2020, forcing the cancellation of the 2020 AutoReject World Series season, as well as the numerous support series the body sanctioned. This left Smith without a job, but his years of experience within the motorsport industry, as well as first-hand experience of the various difficulties and problems that the racing series he had been a part of had encountered, was matched by few. As a result, Smith was a lead candidate for the post of Series Commissioner of the ARWS, and was ultimately offered the role in March of 2023, which he accepted.
Personal Life
Al Smith has been married to his wife Gail since 1979, and the couple have three children - Roy, Katie, and John - and four grandchildren. Al's granddaughter, Olivia Jenkins, daughter of his former driver Paul Jenkins, has started a racing career of her own, and will be competing in the Ginetta Junior championship in 2023.