“They’re what keeps me here,” he said of his grandkids. He spent Friday morning before qualifying teaching them how to correctly install the cylinder heads on the car. You can’t keep a good man down, and Smith, who still was feted by NHRA during the 50 Years of Funny Car celebration in 2016 and maintains the Boynton Beach, Fla., shop from which he raced for decades, is thrilled to not only continue working with his sons, John (aka “Bodie”) and Mike, but also his grandchildren, Mike’s son Nate and Megan, the daughter of John and former Top Fuel star Rhonda Hartman-Smith. I’m still pretty sore, but otherwise feeling OK.” They tried to go in through my thigh to do it but couldn’t, so they ended up cracking open my chest. The day after the Super Bowl, my pulse was at 152 so we knew something else was up. “My doctor and I had been watching the valve for a while -– I’d get an ultrasound every six months- – but I didn’t expect the other part. That Smith, 72, is here at all, let alone wrenching on two cars, is impressive after having undergone open-heart surgery just five weeks ago, a double-bypass surgery that also included an aortic valve replacement. Paul Smith, who competed in Funny Car at the Gatornationals in 1973 and was the championship runner-up in 1974, is still burning nitro at Gainesville Raceway, tuning Gary Richards’ Funny Car as well as the Smith family flopper, which is driven by son John and wrenched on by his grandkids, Nate and Megan.
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