Each race that Garrett Smithley competes in, he puts a sticker on the dashboard that reads “patience, never give up.” That’s the motto the 33-year-old continues to live by. Boy, has it been pushed to the limit.
Smithley has hovered around the NASCAR landscape for more than a decade. It’s been anything but easy for him to remain relevant. In 2025, he’s running the majority of the Xfinity Series schedule with SS Green Light Racing.
After spending the bulk of his Xfinity Series career with JD Motorsports, Smithley has been in limbo several times. Starting and stopping became the norm, only running partial schedules since 2019. He also made 76 Cup Series starts from 2018 to 2022 with a handful of underfunded organizations, and he is now inching closer to 300 national touring starts, currently sitting at 280.
“It’s very difficult when you’re part time to keep your stock as a race car driver up,” Smithley told Jayski.com. “Especially the last two years have been the most challenging years – 2023 was the most challenging year, both personally and professionally of my entire life. Signed a full-time deal, it all fell apart by the third race and then it was trying to maintain and take care of our sponsors.
“As race car drivers, we always try to talk about the positives and talk about the good times and try to put the bad times away. Our memories have to be very short.”
Drivers who make a career out of performing for underdog teams and try to remain in the conversation is no small task. A morale victory with the depth of the Xfinity Series is cracking the top 25. But when the opportunities start drying up – Smithley competed in 10 national touring races in 2022 – second thoughts can creep into a driver’s head. In 2023, he made 13 Xfinity starts, but failed to qualify for seven events.
“I think you start having those second guessing thoughts of, ‘Can I still do this?’” Smithley recalled thinking in the past. “Then, you have a moment like we did last year with JD Motorsports and we qualified 20th at Charlotte without a leased motor; we had scuffed tires all race long. Those moments tell me that I can still do this. I’m still a good race car driver and it gives confidence to those around you.”
Away from the race track, Smithley reaches out to sponsors on his own, hoping to strike a deal. Sometimes, he lands a partner the week of the event he’s about to participate in. He also helps with developing the paint schemes and coordinating merchandise sales, all the logistics it takes to just get to the venue.
“It can be overwhelming at times, but that’s been my role for so long that I’m used to it,” Smithley added. “Selfishly speaking, I hope that one day I can get to the point where I have enough support where I don’t have to do all of those things but I know to be successful in this sport with where I’m at. That’s how it has to go. I do it with a smile on my face.”
Someone who has lived that same lifestyle is six-time Cup Series winner Ross Chastain. The duo were teammates for multiple seasons at JDM before Chastain found a bigger opportunity after consistently outperforming his equipment. He can relate to what Smithley is battling.
“It’s a journey. He doesn’t give up,” Chastain said of Smithley. “He has put in the time and continues to try to be better. You just need the breaks to go your way. He keeps showing up like he’s not going to go away. It’s similar to me. There have been tons of drivers that have shown up with more sponsorship or opportunities and we survive.”
Bobby Dotter, who previously worked with Smithley, once had to do that grind, as well, at the beginning of his driving career. Smithley has competed in 14 of the 20 events in 2025 after initially announcing a full-time ride with SS Green Light Racing. Each time he hopped out of the seat, he did it unselfishly for the betterment of the team, Dotter said.
Smithley is known for taking care of his equipment. His last DNF due to a crash came at EchoPark Speedway in the spring of 2023, 46 starts ago.
“Unfortunately for [Smithley], he’s had to race under budgets and restrictions so much that he’s been really good about not tearing stuff up,” Dotter said. “For me, that’s a plus. It’s hard for when the time comes for him to push it over the edge to make sure we make the race or whatever – that’s what he’s been struggling with. He is always worried about the equipment. On one hand, I would love to tell him not to but on the other, the reality of it is we have to.”
Unsure if he’ll ever get a break with a top-tier team, Smithley plans to continue fighting the battle with smaller organizations in a steep Xfinity field. There have been countless times where he thought the end might be in sight, but a mindset shift changed his perspective.
“It’s a situation where this has been my dream since I was a kid and it’s all I’ve known since I was 15,” Smithley said. “I’ve watched NASCAR since I was 3 or 4 years old and I’ve been obsessed with it. It’s the dream and the support that I’ve had to get to this point is a lot of the reason why I continue to do it.
“I could probably make a living doing a lot of different things, but there are so many people that spent time, effort, money and dedication to get to this point. It’s almost like I’m doing it for myself but I’m also doing it for them. When I started this whole thing, my goal was to get to the Hall of Fame. As a 33-year-old, that’s probably out of the cards and I’m probably not going to get hired by someone like Hendrick or Gibbs, but I can still make a living for the next 10 years in the Xfinity Series and that’s my goal.”
Smithley would be thrilled to achieve his ultimate goal: winning a race at the national level.