The Vault
JERRY “MEDINA” SMITH – N.E. WISCONSIN RACING LEGEND
Posted on: Thursday May 28, 2026
(EDITOR’S NOTE – Jerry “Medina” Smith recently passed away at the age of 88. This humble man was a top flight wheelman in the 1960’s and 1970’s on the Northeastern Wisconsin racing scene. “Medina Smith” won the very first race held at the KK Sports Arena in the mid-1960’s. I had the privilege of interviewing Jerry for my 2015 book “Life In The Past Lane – a history of stock car racing in northeastern Wisconsin from 1950-1980.” This is Smith’s chapter from that book. You can order this book by clicking on the “books” tab.)
Jerry “Medina” Smith (left) poses with crew chief Mike Randerson. (Submitted photo)
Apple Creek Speedway promoter Orv Koury had a small problem at his Appleton race track in 1960.
He had two drivers both named Jerry Smith. There was Jerry Joseph Smith from Appleton and Jerry Smith from Medina. To distinguish the two, Jerry from Appleton became “J.J.” and Jerry from Medina became “Medina” Smith.
As it turned out, both made a significant mark on the local racing scene.
“Medina” Smith, a rookie in 1960, found things a bit rough in the early going. “They had a lot of cars back then and I was a raw rookie getting into it,” said Smith, whos first race car was a 1935 Plymouth Coupe. “There would be close to 60 cars some nights. A brand new rookie was never going to come into Apple Creek and win a feature right off the bat. It just didn’t happen back then. The competition was that tough. I struggled there at first because there were guys who were dialed in real fast there. It was a very tough learning curve at Apple Creek. It was a tough little bullring.”
Some of the top guns at that time Smith was up against were Green Bay’s Earl Ness, Two Rivers Bucky Wagner,
Appleton’s Glen Bessette, Menasha’s George Geisen and Kimberly’s “Smilin’ Clyde” Schumacher.
When Smith built a 1937 Dodge a few seasons later he met Mike Randerson. It was friendship and racing partnership that would stay strong for many years. “When Mike got involved with my racing program I started to get really fast,” explained Smith. “I got fast in pretty much anything he had a hand in.”
Jerry “Medina” Smith at WIR in the early1970’s (Vercauteren family photo)
“Mike and I owned part of that Dodge and later years down the road would also own a ’55 Chevy and a ’57 Chevy together.” Although throughout all the years Randerson maintained the role of mechanic/crew chief while Smith was always the wheelman. They’d race as often as their work schedules would allow, including racing at the newly paved Golden Sands Speedway in Plover (located in central Wisconsin) in the mid 1960’s.
While dabbling on the USAC stock car circuit for a time in 1969 Smith appeared to cross the finish line first in the USAC event at Queen City Speedway in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was Smith’s first ever USAC event he competed in. “I remember I was following Roger McCluskey for about forty laps when his throttle stuck and he hit the wall,” Smith recalled. “Don White started passing cars and he passed us all and they awarded him the race win.” Unlike Randerson Smith holds no ill will or bad feelings towards USAC or the incident itself.
“What are you gonna do about it?” said Smith. “That was the first USAC race I was at. It is what it is.”
During his season of racing with USAC Smith and Randerson hit several of the Midwestern-based series shows on both dirt and asphalt. “We’d race at the Milwaukee Mile, and we’d hit all the dirt tracks in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio,” said Smith. “I enjoyed it and all. It was fun to do for a year, but I preferred to race close to home in the end.”
So after a season in traveling with USAC, Smith and Randerson opted to stick around closer to home. As things turned out “Medina Smith” wound up being one of the bigger names in the late model explosion that was on the verge of happening around northeastern Wisconsin.
From the late 1960’s on Smith was basically a “hired gun” for different car owners. When the full sized late models burst onto the scene and eventually squeezed the coupes out, Smith was right in the mix of it all. “One of the problems was Shawano only wanted to have their local guys running there, and they pretty much all had coupes,” said Smith. “But their car count went down really bad. They eventually said we could come up there with our full sized late models and run with them. The drivers didn’t really care for us at first but eventually we all learned to get along and race together.”
Smith downplays “the incident” with John Schultz at Shawano, in which Schultz took Smith out heading full speed into turn three. The pair went crashing through the guardrail and nearly wound up on old highway 29. “It wasn’t really that big of deal,” said Smith. “We were both just hammering on each other. We settled our differences afterwards.”
Smith went on to wins several features and track championships along the way. He had his most success driving for car owner Lynn Blanchard, who owned Blanchard’s Speed Shop. Blanchard built powerplants for many dirt and asphalt drivers and a few drag racers as well.
“I had some good years with him,” Smith said. “I had a 1972 Chevelle, a Nova and then at the end we ran a BEMCO chassis built out of Wausau which I think we had the most success with.”
The Chevelle Smith raced was eventually sold to “Mr. B” Bobby Bennett and then became the first ever car Lowell Bennett ever ran in 1976. Smith’s last BEMCO car, which he won a Fox River Racing Club title with was sold to Don Britton of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Smith liked racing against JJ Smith and Roger Paul. “Those guys raced really clean,” said Smith. “I even liked racing against (Roger) Regeth, although we would rub fenders a little bit more than those other two guys.”
“Jerry Smith, I would describe as the perfect gentleman,” said former Shawano Speedway track announcer Jerry Rhode. “Jerry was the very first driver to come to Shawano with one of the full sized Late Model cars. Jerry kept his cool with the incident with John Schultz at Shawano – he really did. He never got too rattled about anything. He always had a sharply painted red car number 70.”
Smith experienced success on both dirt and asphalt, having won the Fox River Racing Club late model championship on the D-shaped, half-mile paved oval at Wisconsin International Raceway in Kaukauna in 1977. Still, “Mr. Medina” as he was affectionately known as by fans had a preference for getting “dirty.” “The surface was different every week so you always had to adjust to the track,” Smith pointed out. “We still ran the same car on both dirt and asphalt back then. We really didn’t think too much of converting the car from dirt to asphalt to run WIR. We’d changed the coil over springs and tires. We’d even run without the windshield at WIR and were still fast. It was neat to run the blacktop at WIR because it was so close to home for us.”
When it came to racing payoffs, it was all relative according to Smith. “The payoffs were getting pretty in the mid to late 1970’s towards the end there for me,” said Smith. “But your expenses started to go up quite a bit, too. Tires were getting more costly. So were the engines. So it was all kind of a horse apiece I guess.”
Smith decided to bow out after the 1978 season. “After that season my car owner, Lynn Blanchard, decided to get out of racing, so I did too,” explained Smith. “I mean I had done it 18 seasons. I had fun and we won some races. I drove three different Lynn Blanchard owned cars,” said Smith. “I got the most wins in my career with him.” Among Smith’s big wins were a 50 lap feature at Seymour Speedway with a Chevy Nova against many out-of-town hotdogs. Smith also won the Firecracker 150 at WIR in Kaukauna against some top USAC competitors in 1969.
“We didn’t really make any money at it back then – it was just a hobby straight through,” Smith said. “I mean when Blanchard and I decided to get out of it the engines were getting real expensive, even then.” And the cars themselves? “We built all of ours for awhile – that BEMCO car was the first custom built chassis, and the only one I had and it was fast.”
Smith attempted a comeback of sorts in 1982 on the dirt in Shawano.
“It just wasn’t good from the start,” explained Smith on his attempted comeback.
“The cars had changed a lot in those four years I got out of it. We were behind the eight ball and it just didn’t pan out well so we scrapped it.”
In 2015 at the age of 76, Smith still stays busy with his Jerry’s Auto Sales in Medina. He works out of the same building he’s had since the late 1960’s. “I still wind up fixing up cars and selling a few here and there,” said Smith. “I’m sort of semi-retired but I still run the body shop and sell a few cars here and there. We really are into fishing a lot lately, too. We like to travel every year to North Dakota to go fishing there.”
Smith hasn’t attended races on a regular basis since he hung up his helmet in 1978. Smith was a 2014 inductee of the Shawano Speedway Hall of Fame.