PORTSMOUTH, Ohio — It’s nearly impossible to overlook Garrett Smith at the racetrack these days.

Breast Cancer Awareness Month has inspired Smith to adorn a fuchsia driver’s suit specially made for races throughout the duration of October. His car itself, needless to say, glitters with a wrap tailored to the month’s prevalent and meaningful fuchsia color. 

On a cool night at Portsmouth Raceway Park, the newly-turned 19-year-old again couldn’t blend in with the masses spectating during Friday’s General Tire Dirt Track World Championship presented by Optima Batteries heat races. And his blazing firesuit wasn’t the sole reason he garnered extra attention. Midway through the night, after Smith had won the first heat race, a young boy approached the racer with an important question.

“Are you the guy that’s on the pole tomorrow?” the boy asked, his words zipping along with excitement.

Smith looked the boy in the eyes and nodded his head, and the boy smiled in return as if he was blessed to be in Smith’s presence. On Saturday night, the Eatonton, Ga., driver, who just three days ago celebrated his final teenaged birthday, is indeed set to lead one of Dirt Late Model’s most storied crown jewels, the 42nd DTWC, to the drop of the green.

What awaits Smith is a daunting 100 laps that will require virtual perfection if he wants to make ends meet, which would be a lucrative $100,000 payday and place in the sport’s rich line of history. He would, for starters, become the youngest winner in the race’s history, supplanting Brandon Sheppard of New Berlin, Ill., who was 20 in 2013 when he captured the first of his four DTWC trophies.

And Smith’s front-row counterpart? Long-distance ace and newly minted two-time Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series champion Tim McCreadie of Watertown, N.Y.

“That’s for sure somebody to worry about,” Smith said through a laugh.

VIDEO: Take a look at behind-the-scenes sights and sounds from Friday at Portsmouth.

On the other hand, Smith didn’t overhype the situation because he believes he’s right where he belongs. He has, after all, repeatedly showed during this back half of the season that he has one of the fastest cars in the country.

“More people have definitely noticed me here lately,” Smith said. "But there’s also a lot of people, for some reason, who dislike me. I don’t really know. I get messages almost everyday of (people saying) either ‘good job’ or ‘daddy’s money.’ Well, I don’t know what else to say because I feel I’ve proved myself now, that I deserve to be here. I guess just let them talk. I truly feel like I deserve to be here.”

The flack that Smith receives on social media is too obnoxious for him to fully ignore, but he doesn’t get overly bitter about the disapproval of those who aren’t necessarily cheering him on.

Perhaps Smith’s swift rise and boyish appearance, coupled by his father, Scott, owning all the race equipment, is a recipe to be misunderstood.

“I don’t get it, really,” Smith said of the people who are critical of his place in Dirt Late Model racing. “In this sport, you can go to one track on one weekend and win, and then the next track you may not even make the show. It’s very humbling, this sport is. I don’t know. I’d say, over time, throughout this whole year up to where I’m at now, I feel like I deserve to be out here with these guys.”

Smith’s performance Friday, where he set overall quick time amid a 68-car field with a lap of 14.774 seconds before winning the first of six 12-laps heats, only bolsters his strong back half of the season. At Rossburg, Ohio’s Eldora Speedway in September, he accrued the fourth-most points in World 100 preliminary action among a 108-car field. He was also one of three drivers to have placed inside the top-five of both preliminary features at Eldora’s World 100; the other two drivers in that statistical feat were DirtonDirt.com's top ranked drivers, Jonathan Davenport and Chris Madden.

Smith won a Prairie Dirt Classic prelim over the summer at Fairbury (Ill.) Speedway, and was again in the running for another monumental victory just two weeks ago in the Hillbilly 100 at Tyler County Speedway in Middlebourne, W.Va., where Smith challenged eventual victor Kyle Larson for the win before a flat tire knocked him from contention with 47 laps to go.

While Smith only has one victory on his 2022 ledger despite the noticeable speed — a Schaeffer’s Spring Nationals triumph on April 21 at Tri-County Racetrack in Brasstown, N.C. — his experienced crew chief, Cody Mallory, senses more checkered flags are pending.

“Other than Scott Bloomquist, he is the only other person that I’ve ever encountered in my life that is that sick about winning,” said Mallory, who last served as Bloomquist’s crew chief through the 2019 season. “He wants to win just as bad as me.”

Before Smith and Mallory arrived to the 3/8-mile Portsmouth oval on Friday, they spent some time with Bloomquist earlier in the week to hash out right and wrong ways to approach Portsmouth. Because Smith had yet to race on the Ohio oval, he surmised that the track is shaped much like The Charlotte Dirt Track in Concord, N.C., with a “dusty, wheel-spinning” racing surface akin to Tyler County.

The time spent with Bloomquist also, in the words of Mallory, “rejuvenated my memory on some things we had done in the past that may or may not have been part of the reason” for Friday’s fast start.

“Based on tonight, I would sure have to think they were part of the reason (for success),” he said.

Mallory also commends Smith’s concentration at the wheel and alluded that he doesn’t have to regulate the mind of his driver, or make sure his driver is in the right head space, before big events such as the Dirt Track World Championship.

“There’s been very few times I feel focus has been an issue with Garrett,” Mallory said. “I think the biggest challenge is his youth and lack of experience. It’s asking the right questions to get the right feedback and right information we need to make the right adjustments. A lot of times I feel like it’s probably better for me to watch from the fence and get an assessment about what we need to do instead of bombarding him (with information).

“Because he’s so new to this, everything happens so fast in his mind out there. A lot of times I don’t really think he really knows. I think he tries to grasp driving what he’s got instead of what he could have different to make it easier on him, you know?”

Prior to tonight, Smith has only finished on the lead lap in two of his four 100-lap features this season. He finished 15th in the Prairie Dirt Classic on July 30 as the last car on the lead lap and then 12th in the Hillbilly 100 on Sept. 29 at Tyler County.

Smith finished a lap down in 17th in the Topless 100 at Batesville Motor Speedway in Locust Grove, Ark., and then completed 93 laps in a 21st-place finish at Eldora’s World 100 on Sept. 10. Smith doesn’t like his chances versus the likes of McCreadie, but he could at least be reasonably confident enough knowing he has the car to compete.

“I tend to sometimes be really good early on. Then these 100-lappers are where these veterans come in and, like, take it from you,” Smith said. “I don’t know. I’ve only ran two of three 100-lap races. I mean, these guys have a ton of experience of saving their tires and equipment. That’s what makes it tough. It definitely feels good, knowing I’m starting on the pole out of 68 cars.”

Mallory added that “the last thing I’m worried about is Garrett letting us down in 100 laps.”

“I don’t believe in luck, but we have to have things go our way. If we do our job, things fall in place where they need to,” he added. “If we make the right adjustments, and our car is where it needs to be … I’m confident we’ll be right where we need to be when the pay window opens.

“I think Garrett, the sky’s the limit for him,” Mallory continued. “He has gobs of talent. As far as where I see him and our program, it’s what I expect, to run this good. It doesn’t matter what the circumstances are. I think Garrett is doing a tremendous job at continuing to improve his part of it in every aspect. He’s really stepping up. Make no mistake about it, I’m not the easiest guy to satisfy, or work with … because I want to win more than anyone else here.”

When asked how he might picture victory lane at The Dirt Track World Championship, Smith said: “I don’t even know. Who knows how I’d react. I don’t know. As I said, I’ve been in the right spots to win one. I just haven’t sealed the deal yet. So far, we’ve sealed the deal tonight. But tomorrow is the big night. We’ll see how it goes.”

Beyond his edifying talk with Bloomquist and continued rise in stature within the sport, Smith's had a fine past couple of days. He started the week celebrating his 19th birthday, enjoying time home last weekend fine-dining with friends and family at his favorite steakhouse, The Silver Moon.

"I'm a fillet guy," Smith said, describing how he prefers the cut of his steak. "It has to be medium-well."

If the circumstances align Saturday, Smith could serve himself something far more satisfying, perhaps, than his birthday dinner, and that's potentially cementing himself in the rare status of a teenager winning one of the sport’s storied crown jewels.

“Like I said, there’s only one other person I can relate (his drive to win) to, and that’s Scott Bloomquist,” Mallory said. “It’s been a real pleasure to take this sport from a different approach instead of working with an experienced guy, whether that’d be with Scott or Jimmy (Owens); to take a kid most of the world had never heard of. We are only just over a year into it. Anybody that knows anything about Dirt Late Model racing, it’d be hard-pressed to find someone that doesn’t know who Garrett Smith is now.”