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A titan of the sport whose championship-winning career spanned from Dirt Late Model racing’s earliest days to the last of 784 career victories coming on its latest-generation tour, the venerable Freddy Smith — forever known as the Southern Gentleman — died late Saturday night after a brief battle with leukemia. The Kings Mountain, N.C., native and record-setting five-time Dirt Track World Championship winner was 76. | Slideshow

His son Jeff Smith, calling his father “my real life hero” just like many longtime racing fans of the silver-haired driver of the No. 00, revealed his father’s passing early this morning.

The inaugural National Dirt Late Model Hall of Famer began his career in 1966 and dominated the Carolinas for years became a cornerstone on the National Dirt Racing Association (nine career victories) in the late 1970s while making a handful of NASCAR starts. He began his DTWC run in the 1980s, dazzled in driving for one of the sport’s first super teams in the Bazooka-sponsored rides of Louisiana-based GVS Racing, captured the 1996 Hav-A-Tampa Dirt Racing Series title in a Clayton Christenberry-owned car and finally continued to win crown jewel races into his 50s before retiring in 2012.

Smith's five Dirt Track World Championships (1983, ’85, ’91, ’93 and ’98) — the first four at Pennsboro (W.Va.) Speedway — etched him among the sport’s greats. While his futility in 19 World 100 starts at the famed Eldora Speedway left a void on his otherwise remarkable record, he was triumphant at the Rossburg, Ohio, oval in the inaugural $100,000 Dream for GVS in 1994, winning the sport’s then-richest payday despite racing with a broken thumb, and then added another six-figure victory at Eldora in 2000. Among other major victories, he won the inaugural Topless 100 at Batesville (Ark.) Motor Speedway in 1993 and was a two-time winner of the Show-Me 100 at West Plains (Mo.) Motor Speedway ('98 and '01).

“We felt like we was as good as anybody,” the oft-understated Freddy Smith said in reviewing his prodigious career in a 2019 interview. “I ain’t gonna say I was any better than anybody because I just don’t feel that way. We went out and raced with all of them, from the Carolinas out to Arizona up to North Dakota — everywhere — and each of us won and had good nights.”

His final major victory came July 11, 2008, at North Alabama Speedway on the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series in his 41st year of racing.

"We have peace in our hearts,” Jeff Smith posted early this morning, noting that his father “gave his life to the Lord” two weeks earlier. “We want to thank everyone for all of the prayers that have been sent up. Please continue to pray for peace and comfort for mom and the rest of our family.”

Besides his son, who finished second to Freddy in his final victory at one of his most familiar tracks, Cherokee Speedway in Gaffney, S.C., in 2007, survivors include his wife of 58 years, Naomi, and four grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his father Clarence “Grassy” Smith, who assisted Freddy’s earliest racing endeavors.

Correction: Fixes victory total and year of Smith's Lucas Oil to 2008 sted '06; corrects length of marriage.