Fred Smith

Fred Smith covers performance cars and motorsport with a focus on how racing culture, policy, and history shape the enthusiast world. He writes across news, analysis, and features, tying contemporary developments in motorsport and performance vehicles back to the traditions and communities that support them.

Motorsports editor with a racing-first lens

Fred Smith is Motorsports Editor at Road & Track, where his work grows out of a longstanding fascination with auto racing. He approaches stories from the perspective of competition and racecraft, whether he is writing about top-level series, historic figures, or the infrastructure that makes racing possible. His coverage includes event results and access stories, such as detailed reporting on major races like the Rolex 24 at Daytona and guidance for readers on archived live blogs that capture how those events unfold minute by minute. He also tracks changes that affect how fans experience motorsport, including the release of extensive race broadcast archives for series such as NASCAR, highlighting thousands of hours of Cup Series racing made newly available for streaming.

Smith’s motorsports coverage extends beyond current race weekends to the legacy and personalities behind the sport. He writes in-depth features on pivotal figures like Bruce McLaren, exploring how individual careers and innovations helped define modern racing culture. He treats museums and collections as part of that same ecosystem, noting how institutions like the Toyota Automotive Museum expand their scope by adding landmark cars from outside their core brand, such as the Acura NSX. Across this work, he consistently connects modern motorsport to its historical roots and to the communities that sustain it over time.

Performance cars, concept studies, and enthusiast policy

Alongside motorsport, Smith covers performance cars and enthusiast hardware with an emphasis on how design, heritage, and regulation intersect. He reports on legislative developments that affect enthusiast driving, such as Minnesota’s proposed changes to classic car weekend use, explaining how stalled bills leave existing restrictions in place while keeping open questions about future midweek driving rules for owners of historic vehicles. He also follows research and policy proposals that would reshape the everyday fleet, including studies that suggest taxing cars by their physical dimensions and defining a “right size” benchmark based on the footprint of a Volkswagen Golf. That mix of legislation and research shows his interest in how rules and incentives directly shape the cars enthusiasts can drive and enjoy.

Smith’s car coverage frequently highlights distinctive performance and concept vehicles. He reports on experimental designs like Toyota’s unused 86 shooting brake concept, describing how the alternative body style would have changed the character of the well-known sports coupe. He also covers rare or noteworthy performance models and new launches, including detailed looks at coupes and other enthusiast-focused cars that stand out for their design or driving dynamics. In long-form features, he traces family and personal connections to specific vehicles, as in a story about a perfect stretch of road driven in a 1971 Ford Pinto that evolved into a lasting family legacy. These pieces show his tendency to treat cars not just as products but as anchors for personal histories and communities.

Cross-masthead perspective on racing and performance

In addition to Road & Track, Smith holds the Motorsports Editor role at Car and Driver, extending his racing-focused perspective across multiple enthusiast mastheads. That dual positioning reinforces his emphasis on competition, performance, and the way motorsport informs street-car development. His work across both outlets covers similar terrain: race coverage, performance-car news, and stories that bridge historical context with present-day engineering and regulation. This gives him a broad vantage point on how major series, manufacturers, and policymakers collectively influence the enthusiast landscape.

Smith’s writing style is direct and concise, prioritising clear explanations of how a given change, event, or car matters to the broader world of performance driving. Whether he is detailing the sale of major facilities such as McLaren’s headquarters and what that implies for a manufacturer’s operations, or tracking new autonomous taxi projects from high-performance brands like Rimac and their planned rollouts in European cities, he situates each development inside the larger story of how enthusiasts engage with driving and racing. Across motorsport coverage, performance-car news, and policy reporting, he consistently ties the technical and institutional details back to the lived experience of people who care deeply about cars.