She was pretty cool. For so many years, the sight of this diminutive lady in the paddock was a sure sign Kenny Smith was on track. His mum Dorothy – and a rolling contingent of other family members – followed Kenny right up to his days in the Toyota Racing Series.
In those later times, when her mobility was not what it should be, she’d be parked on a camp chair in Kenny’s pit garage, watching everything that went on. Always said she tried not to watch him on track though; that was just too nerve-wracking.
The hospitality team at TRS knew her well and made her welcome in the main VIP area.
When Dorothy passed away at Palmerston North Hospital during a Manfeild TRS weekend it cast a pall over proceedings and even the youngest of the internationals understood.
So it was way cool to see TRS name a trophy after her and include it in the honour roll for the Grand Prix weekend along with the Higgins Trophy and the Grand Prix trophy itself.
Also cool to see it put up as the prize this year for the opening round at Highlands Motorsport Park.
Many would find it appropriate that the opening weekend would be ‘owned’ by Kiwis, and that rising star Liam Lawson would be the one to put his name on the trophy. You can bet it meant a lot to Kenny.
Liam’s take on it?
“I can’t believe this has happened. I’m just stoked.”
On his Facebook page he continued: “This afternoon’s race was just unreal! The Turners Cars-Porter Group CE FT50 was a rocket! The win gave us the championship lead but most importantly, we won the Dorothy Smith Memorial Trophy. I’m incredibly honoured and privileged to win the trophy which is in memory of Ken Smith’s mum who was a massive motor racing supporter.”
Liam has been under Kenny’s mentorship for years. He’s also been at Toyota Racing’s headquarters at Hampton Downs for anything, anything at all about cars. Keen? You don’t know the half of it. Dedicated? Up till a wee while ago his mum would bring him out to test days or events and drop him off, often in his school uniform (Pukekohe College grays) because he was – you guessed it – not old enough to hold a road licence. Last year he was too young to race the series, and in fact only turned 16 on the day of the Grand Prix. This year the package has come together for Liam.
- – He’s got a small and dedicated group of financial backers that are opening the doors for him
- – He has received support from the Kiwi Driver Fund, which will take care of the engine lease portion of the drive
- – He’s with champion team M2
- – He arrived here on the back of race wins in the final round of the South East Asia Formula 3 Championship. That series was won by Dan Ticktum, who crashed out of the opening race of the SEA F3 winter series in Saturday.
Speaking of Ticktum, over the same weekend he’s been racing the South-East Asia Formula Three Winter Series. Though he’d been looking at TRS, for reasons unclear he went with the Asian series.
Not such a good start for the Brit, who in his main season campaign last year was bumping wheels in European Formula 3 with our own Marcus Armstrong, Armstrong’s Prema team-mate Guanyu Zhou (another TRS graduate and very fast these days), and Mick Schumacher.
In the winter series opener he tangled with Chinese hotshot Yeung YiFei and went off in the first race (“hit off by my team-mate”), recording a DNF. Rinus ‘Veekay’ van Kalmhout won that and the next race while Ticktum battled with a “shit set of tyres”. His best was second overall in the third race (“it was like it was raining, there was oil coming out the back of [race winner Young Yi-Fei]’s car the whole race”), and he described the whole venture as “a disaster”. Oh Danny boy!
See race report ‘Lawson leaves them standing’
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